Re: a patch for working with HDD images and for newer Intel cards

[P]

Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:
> At Tue, 06 May 2003 11:08:45 +0100,
> address@hidden wrote:
>
> > I don't agree with the patch as it treats files (disk images)
> > and disks differently which is confusing at best.
> > The exact same logic holds true for disks as files.
> > I.E. if you do try to open /dev/hda1 or /dev/loop1 for e.g.
> > in write_to_partition and it's already mounted then
> > disk corruption may occur.
>
> However, a disk image is very different from a real disk indeed,
> because Linux maintains the information about partitions for the
> latter, but not for the former. Thus, for an image file, Linux forgets
> everything about it once you have Linux to unmount it. For real disks,
> you cannot do that.

ah, OK then Sergey's patch is appropriate (but mine is also
for extra error checking). Hmm so just to clarify...

if linux
    if !disk
        partitions and "disk" cache are coherent
        even when partitions mounted, so can just
        interact with base loop device rather
        than loop device corresponding to a partition
    else
        partitions and disk cache are never coherent
        even when the partitions are unmounted, so
        must interact at the partition level (/dev/hda1 for e.g.).

Pádraig.