On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 1:23 PM, Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> wrote: > Hello, Canek. > > On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:16:56PM -0600, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: >> On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> wrote: > >> > Floppy disk support has been removed from kernel 3.4.9. I'm not very >> > happy about this. Does anybody know why, or by whom? > >> Nobody removed anything; it's still there, in 3.6.3. I'm not using it, >> but I can select it without problems. > >> > This removal has been done in a somewhat peculiar manner. The config >> > option was called CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD, and used to be at <Device >> > Drivers>/<Block Devices>. It is now not visible there. > >> It's visible here. > >> > However, Typing '/' BLK_DEV_FD in 'make menuconfig' returns its >> > documentation, saying BLK_DEV_FD is dependent upon >> > CONFIG_ARCH_MAY_HAVE_PC_FDC. This latter variable isn't visible >> > anywhere. > >> It's defined for you if the ARCHitecture (as the name implies) >> supports floppies. It's set =y in all my kernels. > > But, what does the "architecture" actually mean?
x86, ARM. As far as I know, in ARM you can only have floppies if you connect an USB drive to it. So BLK_DEV_FD has no point in ARM. I suppose the IBM s/390 mainframe computer doesn't use floppies either. >> > I tried setting ARCH_MAY_HAVE_PC_FDC by hand in .config, but that didn't >> > help. 'make menuconfig' just unset it again of its own accord. Then I >> > inserted BLK_DEV_FD into .config by hand and built the kernel. I haven't >> > tested it yet. > >> > All this seems rather strange. Why shouldn't I be able to use my floppy >> > drive? > >> Your kernel config/setup has something really weird. > > OK. If I start the configuration afresh, I do indeed see the floppy disk > selector. :-) You had a borked configuration, for some reason. >> ARCH_MAY_HAVE_PC_FDC is a boolean variable that it's set automatically >> for you, since it's arch dependant. You cannot set it (nor unset it, >> AFAIK). > > Do you know where the source for 'make menuconfig' is in the source tree? I believe is in scripts, along with kbuild. menuconfig is one of several frontends to the build system. >> May I recommend to completely uninstall your sources package and >> delete /usr/src/linux (after a proper backup, of course), install them >> again, and do a make oldconfig (after restoring your old .config)? > > By starting again from scratch, it seems clear that the problem is in > some of the config options I have selected. I thought that would help. >> Because ARCH_MAY_HAVE_PC_FDC is something you should not to even think about. > > I agree with you there. ;-) Regards. -- Canek Peláez Valdés Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
