[quoted lines by Boris Daix on September 9, 2002, at 12:48] >Cheryl Homiak <chomiak@chartermi.net> writes: >> 9. just something I have wondered about. The debian documentation says to >> use >> bs=1024 >> when using the "dd" command to transfer the image to a floppy. the brltty >> documentation talks about using >> bs=512 >> Is there a reason for this difference? > >I don't think so, as far as the block size is multiple of powers of >2. Anyway, I'm not sure it's really useful to mention bs option - it >can't hurt (it's kind of security in case floppies are broken if I >remember) ! It's necessary to specify bs= as the default is 1. Writing out 1 byte at a time, even though the kernel does do some intelligent buffering, is very inefficient. The basic floppy block size is 512, so that's really the best block size to specify. 1024 is usually okay since a double-sided floppy (the typical case) always has an even number of blocks. Strictly speaking, any number which is not only a multiple of 512 but also a divisor of whatever size the floppy happens to be (usually 1,474,560) is okay. To keep it simple and error free, though, my recommendation is bs=512. -- Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario | Word of God. Please contact me EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada K2A 1H7 | if you're concerned about Hell. http://familyradio.com _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@redhat.com https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list