Re: [ANNOUNCE] submount: another removeable media handler

[Steve Brueggeman]

Off Topic, sorry.

Is there a way to detect whether a floppy has been installed, without
actually forcing the motor to spin, and heads to engage???

I'd like to create a simple auto-run utility that constantly looks for
a special file on a MSDOS formatted floppy, and run it if found.
Unfortunately, the only way I know of to determine if a floppy is
installed is to open the floppy device, which causes the undesired
motor spin-up, and head access.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

Steve Brueggeman

On 16 May 2003 11:46:20 -0700, you wrote:

>Followup to:  <[e-mail]>
>By author:    Eugene Weiss <[e-mail]>
>In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>>
>> 
>> > how is it different from what automounter does?
>> 
>> Autofs works by creating a special filesystem above the vfs layer, and passing 
>> requests and data back and forth.   Submount actually does much less than 
>> this- it puts a special filesystem underneath the real one, and the only 
>> things it returns to the VFS layer are error messages.  It handles no IO 
>> operations whatsoever.
>> 
>> Peter Anvin has called using the automounter for removeable media "abuse."
>> Submount is designed for it.
>> 
>
>Sure, but it's not clear to me that you have listened to me saying
>*why* it is abuse.
>
>Basically, in my opinion removable media should be handled by insert
>and removal detection, not by access detection.  Obviously, there are
>some sticky issues with that in the case where media can be removed
>without notice (like PC floppies or other manual-eject devices), but
>overall I think that is the correct approach.
>
>	-hpa