On 27-Jul-99 William Meyer wrote:
>> On 26-Jul-99 Thomas J. Hamman wrote:
>
>> I agree with most of your views, but there's only so much you can fit in
> one
>> book. A couple points to keep in mind:
>>
>> Using an ATAPI CDR drive in SCSI emulation is a subject that is not
> applicable
>> to all (or even most) users. Furthermore, even for someone who does have
> such
>> a drive, knowing how to use it in SCSI emulation is not required for
> installing
>> Linux and getting their system up and running. ATAPI CDR drives read CD's
> just
>> fine with default IDE drivers; SCSI emulation is only needed for burning
> CDR's,
>> with cdrecord. Thus a user with an ATAPI CDR drive does not need
> information
>> about using SCSI emulation straight from their installation guide; it's
>> something they can look up later in the large wealth of documentation
> written
>> specifically on the subject of burning CDR's.
>
> Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I understand your point, but I still
> disagree. Costco has been selling pallette-loads of HP 8100 CDRs, and have
> even sold Mandrake (briefly) and Red Hat. I admit that my neighborhood may
> ba a bit atypical, but even so...
Snipping the rest since I don't even disagree with it. :) I do agree with you
about the current situation of documentation for Linux--especially where the
HOWTO's are concerned, since many of them seem to be very outdated. (Though I
find it hard to find too much fault with the people who write them, who gain no
money for the time they spend on it.)
I never disagreed with your opinions of Linux documentation and what needs to
be done with it, and I'm sorry I didn't make that more clear in my earlier
reply. I was only saying that instructions for setting up SCSI emulation for
an ATAPI CDR drive have their proper place--CD-WRITING HOWTO's/FAQ's, User
Guides, the instructions for cdrecord (cdrecord's homepage has links to all the
info you'd need, and it was enough for me to get my drive set up for
burning)--and that proper place isn't a distribution's installation guide.
I wasn't aware that Mandrake had a separate 'user guide' in addition to its
installation guide. If so, I would agree that that (the user guide) is a proper
place for information about SCSI emulation.
-Tom
