Re: Interface for SCSI transactions ?

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

> Don't you have any time any longer for working on this? I/we understand
> if you don't, but no reply since October 17 makes one wonder.

Well, actually i was waiting for a decision what RPC layout to use.

Meanwhile i explored the opportunities to operate a real CD drive from
a qemu guest. With GNU/Linux it would work quite well
  http://libburnia-project.org/wiki/QemuXorriso
  
But all workable device configurations deliver an SCSI drive or
a virtio device. I understand the latter has no support in GNU/Hurd at
all, whereas the SCSI device emulates a controller which my copy of
GNU/Hurd does not know.

When i was up to exploring how to hack in Hurd, i got the unexpected
opportunity to learn from libcdio mailing list how to produce, write
and read CD-TEXT for audio CDs. That's a long standing item on my
todo list. (Another one is UDF. Hurd has the potential to become such
an item, too.)

I plan to revisit the CD-on-Hurd topic when i'm done with CD-TEXT.
I could still need a tutor then, who leads me through the development
cycle of Hurd, although i have some instructions from this list
somewhere in my mailbox.


Hurd has the same strange influence on me as UDF. Whenever i begin
to work on it, there pop up distractions. I stumbled into the test party
of qemu 1.0, and over the ongoing work of Leon Merten Lohse in libcdio.
So probably i would have to begin UDF again in order to induce progress
with my Hurd plans.
(CD-TEXT docs are proprietary but understandable, if one puts together
 the few public snippets. UDF docs are public and free, but structured
 to chase away the reader. There are two interleaved specs, ECMA-167 and
 UDF-2.60.)

Other than with CD-TEXT and UDF, there has never been a user request for
CD burning on Hurd. So it is a total pet project of mine, motivated
only by me being maintainer of a GNU project that is not yet completely
operational on the GNU operating system with GNU kernel.
I still have to learn a lot before i can handle the whole vertical
stack from emulated or passed-through hardware to Hurd userspace.
(It's so dark and lonely down there in the Linux 2.0 driver dungeon.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas