On Tue, 2009-04-28 at 17:28 -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote: > Daniel Reurich wrote: > >>> > >> Grub is capable of doing that IF THE FIRMWARE CAN REACH IT. > > > > Well if the firmware can't find one if the disks, then it doesn't matter > > what scheme we have. Even a single disk won't work. > > It is *quite* common that firmware can reach a subset of the disks. If > not when the system is set up, then when a controller is blown and the > user has to install a new one. I have seen this particular malfunction > up close more times than I can count. > In which case your probably using a hardware raid controller anyway so not our problem. Otherwise if the array is broken by a failed controller we probably shouldn't boot of it anyway. > > What's your beef. MD already reserve some space for the superblock, and > > write-intent bitmap (which I believe is also replicated across the > > member disks), so why not add some space to this to make it possible for > > a bootloader as well. > > My beef is that you're actively promoting an extremely dangerous > concept, dangerous exactly because it is seductive -- "it seems so > easy." Most users, you included, apparently, typically will have no > notion of the failure modes, and will pick the "easy" option. > What's specifically dangerous about it? Define the failure modes that this scheme is unable to either cope with that it should do. > Booting is ugly business. I have dealt with the subtleties for almost > two decades, and it riles me when people go and foist off bad ideas on > users. Then stop being so emotive about it and explain the failings of the scheme rather than point the finger at me and say I don't know. -- Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd Ph 021 797 722 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
