Re: Re: [9fans] Any one going to change to sata disks?

["Jack Johnson" <knapjack@gmail.com>]

On 6/30/06, jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com <jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> I had to go back and read the thread to see how we got here:
>
>         1) some piece of hardware which no real effort has been made
>        to programme doesn't work right;
>         2) familiar discussion about hardware, drivers, documentation;
>         3) suggestion is to buy a much more expensive piece of
>            hardware with similar lack of documentation.
>
> We haven't invested any effort in making the free hardware we
> get on almost every motherboard work, maybe someone should try.

It looked like Geoff and Andrey were just starting down that path,
seeing if they were using the same chipset, and you missed Ron:

         2b) standards developed by vendor committees suck

which is how I devolved into 3.  In general, though Plan 9 does a
decent job of supporting the free hardware that comes with every
motherboard, it does have a history of finding a handful of good
choices and supporting those well (video and USB audio as good
examples).  The archives are full of similar discussions when every
other motherboard vendor shipped a different onboard SCSI controller,
and ultimately the relatively sane and supportable choices were weeded
from the mix.

Admittedly, none of which was done by me.  It's obvious I'm out of my
league.  But, I don't think the above is an unfair observation of the
process that came before.

Perhaps the question I should have asked should not have been about
specific hardware.  The general question should have been: given that
there are SATA controllers out there that mimic SCSI controllers, is
it probable that it would be easier to support one of these than the
early-generation or current SATA chipsets floating around, or would
that be a short-sighted approach?

> I think we need to focus here.

Sorry,

-Jack