[wplug] Mandrake 9.2 and LG writable opticals

Bill Moran wmoran at potentialtech.com
Mon Oct 27 10:11:03 EST 2003


Vanco, Don wrote:
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Bill Moran [mailto:wmoran at potentialtech.com] 
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>Of course, because of the nature of a CD-ROM, it's possible 
>>that certain
>>commands (valid or invalid) could cause physical damage to the unit,
>>such as trying to position the laser at a track outside the 
>>range of its
>>allowed motion (like moving it to track -4000000 or something).
>>
>>If this is the case, it's (in my opinion) a bug in both the 
>>CD controller
>>code in Mandrake, as well as the drive itself.  Obviously, 
>>the Mandrake
>>code should not tell the CD to do something that could damage it, but
>>neither should the CD actually attempt such an action.  As 
> 
> <snip>
> 	Yeah  - but _read_ the bug.  It nukes the drive even if you do a
> network install!  Just installing L-M9.2 on a machine with an LG writable
> destroys the device.

I saw that.  It doesn't change my opinion of the problem.  Whatever
Mandrake is doing during whatever phase of its operation (My first guess
would be when it's probing for devices) is a) something it shouldn't do
to that CD-ROM and b) an operation that the CD-ROM should reject in order
to protect itself.

And I'm just speculating.  Once they sort it out, I may look like a fool,
but at the current time, I can't imagine it not fitting into the
description I just provided.

All in all, this is just idle chatter (from me) as I haven't even examined
the code in question to be able to speculate very intelligently.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com




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