Quality of FreeBSD

[Karl Denninger]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 04:12:47PM -0400, Paul Mather wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 14:26 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:
> 
> > Ok, Robert, but then here's the question....
> > 
> > How come the ATA code which was very stable in 4.x was screwed with in a
> > production release, breaking it, with no path backwards to the working
> > code?
> 
> Not to mention that this happened during the 5.x release cycle.  It's
> one thing to have a regression creep in when moving from one major
> release to another (e.g., "oh, that's the fallout from introducing Big
> Feature XYZ" or "a big architectural revamp may have broken some
> things"), but it's another thing entirely to have it happen between
> minor releases, which are supposed to be "evolution, not revolution."
> 
> (Although the whole "Early Adopter" status for early 5.x releases might
> mean all that is muddied when it comes to the 5.x series.)
> 
> My main disappointment with the ATA DMA TIMEOUT bug is not that it crept
> in (these things happen), but that it did not seem to be taken seriously
> when it had done so.  (Though, as Robert said, if the developers can't
> reproduce the problem, it's hard for them to work on and fix it.)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Paul.
> -- 
> e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

My main disappointment is that it STILL isn't being taken seriously, six
months down the road.

My PR, for instance, is still open - as well it should be, as the 
DMA_TIMEOUT bug still exists.  Fixing the retry code so that the 
transaction is actually retried up to three times (instead of causing 
the disk to be declared broken on the first instance) <IS NOT A FIX>.

The problem is very easy to reproduce; I have put forward the exact 
configuration necessary to do so in the original PR.  I have since 
discovered (and others have reported) that it is not particularly 
sensitive to the exact hardware involved - basically any SII chipset
PCI SATA adapter (which is like all of the "basic" ones, including the
Adaptec and Bustek) with a pair of SATA disks appears to be all that is
required.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl at denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist
http://www.denninger.net	My home on the net - links to everything I do!
http://scubaforum.org		Your UNCENSORED place to talk about DIVING!
http://homecuda.com		Emerald Coast: Buy / sell homes, cars, boats!
http://genesis3.blogspot.com	Musings Of A Sentient Mind