Re: device detection

[Glenn McGrath]

Andrew Clausen wrote:
> 
> Glenn McGrath wrote:

> > It could be done parsing /proc/devices or /proc/partitions, but this
> > method will still fail if the kernel doesnt have /proc support compiled
> > in.
> 
> /proc is always around, nowadays.  Well, not always, but we can
> force everyone to have it!  Not unreasonable IMHO.
> 
Yea, most people would agree with you there.

Personally i dont like /proc cause it adds about 75KB to the size of the
kernel, which is 5% of the total space for a boot floppy. But i guess i
am probably oversensitive to space concerns.

> (OTOH, FreeBSD is a different story... /proc isn't the same
> mess it is on Linux.  /proc is a disgrace, IMHO.  should be /kernel,
> or something)
> 
I guess thats the other thing we have to keep in mind we dont want add
extra linuxisms (if thats a word) whilst looking to port it to other
os's
Is there an equivalent to /proc/partitions in the *BSD's ?

> So, how should we parse /proc/partitions?  We need to tell the
> partition devices apart from the "real" ones.  Can we simply
> strip the numbers off, from the end?
> 
> Andrew Clausen

Yea, that would be by far the easiest approach, just loop around a scanf
statment.

libpci can be used to identify IDE bus's, if there was a way to probe
the ide bus directly to scan for disks, then we could avoid OS specifics
and detect drives directly, maybe thats a bit heavy for parted, but i
have an interest in that area anyway so i will see what i can work out.

We can always fall back to scanning /proc/partitions.


Glenn