Re: [gentoo-user] Floppy disk support removed from kernel 3.4.9.

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@×××.de> wrote:
> Hi, Everybody!
>
> 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.

> 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.
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).

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)?

Because ARCH_MAY_HAVE_PC_FDC is something you should not to even think about.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México