Re: [PATCH] hdreg.h

    > People complain that fdisk doesn't compile under 2.5.14
    > because hdreg.h has acquired stuff that cannot be included
    > from userspace. Will release util-linux 2.11r later tonight
    > with a local copy.
    > But now that I look at this file: it still contains
    > struct hd_big_geometry and HDIO_GETGEO_BIG.
    > Please remove them.

    If fdisk doesn't use it. I will take your patch immediately.
    One arbitrary ioctl which was introduced ad hock less. :-).

No, fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk do not use HDIO_GETGEO_BIG.
And indeed, the ioctl is completely meaningless.

I sent the patch both to you and to Linus because it also touches
sd.c and a few other places outside the ide driver.

There is also HDIO_GETGEO_BIG_RAW, which is not entirely useless -
it gives the physical geometry that is used for actual I/O,
as opposed to the logical geometry used for the partition table.
Probably it is used only in hdparm. Modern disks use LBA and
HDIO_GETGEO_BIG_RAW is meaningless for them. Old disks that use
CHS almost always have equal physical and logical geometry.
If you throw out HDIO_GETGEO_BIG_RAW but make sure there is
a line in dmesg reporting the geometry used for CHS I/O in case
that is different from the logical I/O (bios_CHS), I wouldn't
mind at all.

Andries