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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!sgigate.sgi.com!newsfeeder.sdsu.edu!chi-news.cic.net!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!not-for-mail From: tundra@MCS.COM (Tim Daneliuk) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: DAT Hell Date: 28 Jun 1996 09:33:27 -0500 Organization: TundraWare Lines: 35 Message-ID: <4r0qfn$n6h@Mercury.mcs.com> References: <4pvmjj$flb@mercury.mcs.com> <4qgo0o$q31@uriah.heep.sax.de> <31D027F0.41C67EA6@baynetworks.com> <4quof1$9p@uriah.heep.sax.de> Reply-To: tundra@tundraware.com NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com In article <4quof1$9p@uriah.heep.sax.de>, J Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de> wrote: >Robert Withrow <bwithrow@baynetworks.com> wrote: > >> Yes, but what I am saying is ``isn't there a better way than >> tweaking the code?'' You didn't comment o the system variable >> approach. > >The problem is that there are far too many different timeout values >for the different SCSI commands. Perhaps one might classify them and >see which ones must be adjustable, but still then, you have to assign >them on a per-device basis (not per-driver), since e.g. a Sony DAT >will require far more time to rewind than the good ol' Archive Viper >you happen to have in the same machine (using the same `st' driver). > >-- >cheers, J"org One sort of "middle ground" approach I've always wished for was a table (file) of text entries which defined all major variables in the kernel. In the best of all worlds this file would be optional, and any variable not in the file would default to its preset kernel value (thus allowing "clean" boots by deleting such a file which is wrong or corrupted). This late binding of kernel constants would be really handy for performance tuning and fixing problems like the one I originally had here with DAT erase operations. In some sense it is a similar (but more complete) idea of what's going on with the -c argument at boot time. Oh well, the problem is fixed (thanks!) ... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tim Daneliuk / tundra@tundraware.com Voicemail/FAX 847.827.1706