geom and removable media

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

"Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> ... it was a big mistake to use the same /dev entry
> for both drive and media

Well, maybe, in hindsight :)  If the drive and the media had
separate /dev entries it might never have been necessary to
invent ioctl.

> but waaay to late to fix it now.

Yep.  The drive and its removeable media have shared the same
/dev entry since, at least, Bell Labs 6th Edition.  (I _know_
this is true of dectapes, half-inch magtapes, 8" floppies, and
"rk" cartridge disks; I think the "rp" disk drive may also have
had removeable packs.)