Re: [MiNT] Good bye :-(

[Martin-Eric Racine <q-funk@pp.fishpool.com>]

> Thanks to everybody that tried to solve my harddisk problem.  Yet,
> it was in vain.  I'm really fed up with screwdrivers, I can't afford 
> a Milan, so what should I do?  

Though question I am facing myself, but read on, cause your TT might not
be broken...

> I suspect the controller to be broken (...)
> Large parts of the data I write are immediately forgotten afterwards.

I have been experiencing this too, using the 1.15.0 kernel and MinixFS
0.70 series since PL-7, so it might not be your controler.

BUG REPORT:

It might be a good idea for core developpers to stop whacking about that
"stupid useless low-level hardware stuff" in MinixFS and kernel sources.

Others and myself have warned you before, "MiNT comes with no guarantee",
but recent betas have the TOSFS and other things completely disabled or
whacked out of the sources, because some people don't understand _why_
that code was there in the first place.

Specifically, MinixFS has become completely unstable and dodgy, because
the kernel cache-management isn't working properly.  This becomes quite
evident when making back-ups or copying several files from one filesystem
to another.  Inode blocks are reported to be unwritten, copying is stoped,
Thing crashes, the AES freezes or worse, the kernel crashes.

If it was only colourfull screen garbage, I wouldn't be so worried, but
in this case it is the filesystem itself, which is rather frightening.

Additionally, 3 times out of 5, I get "illegal instruction" or bus errors
on SH or other binaries executed during bootup, since 1.15 kernels, and
anything I recompile using new libs (ie: mintos, for example) requires up
to 3 times the stack size of KGMD versions of the same binaries, otherwise
they crash for no reason.  Then again, some stuff refuses to recompile or
produces downright dodgy binaries, using libs since PL-47.

So.........

Before trashing some code out of the sources, please consider carefully;
you just might be trashing a vital safegard out the door........

HINT:   both Guido and myself have a TT.  Check your diffs....

> I'm really sorry, but I think that I have to leave the MiNT community.  
> I hope that I don't disappoint anybody too much.
> This means that the MiNTLib is currently orphaned.  Anybody got the
> guts to take over the maintainance?

I hope someone can help you fix your harddisk problems, because I honestly
value your efforts on the MiNT project _very_ much.  If not, well...
Best of luck, still.

PS:  I do _not_ consider myself a programming wizz or anything, but, as a
     user, I am getting _damn_ worried about the unstabilities introduced
     recently in the kernel and libs.  

PS2: Don't give me the "your dodgy setup" attitude.  When I reformatted
     my TT's harddisk recently, I re-installed everything using fresh
     brand-new binaries from Frank's homepage or Funet archive.

I just had to let it off my chest............

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Martin-Eric Racine       http://www.pp.fishpool.com/~q-funk/M-E/
The Atari TT030 Homepage   http://www.megacom.net/~q-funk/TT030/
New MiNT Distribution   http://members.tripod.com/~TT030/nmd.htm
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