Linux Kernel's Floppy Disk Code Is Seeing Improvements In 2020

[skeetre]

I still use floppies at work. I'll be glad for any improvements to their functionality. And if you have to ask why I use floppies, they are removable, non-flash based memory, and can be write protected. Perfect for transferring data from one network to another. Lots of rpms are small enough to fit on a single floppy, config files, all kinds of things that aren't worth wasting a cd/dvd on. And you can reuse the heck out of them.

Zip drives and Jazz drives were the bomb!

[starshipeleven]

Interesting. Although many modern main boards have deprecated this kind of device nowadays.

People running Linux 32bit will probably need this still

[rene]

someone could fix sparc64 oopsing while accessing the floppy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAAJG0UlRxU

[schmidtbag]

I still use floppies at work. I'll be glad for any improvements to their functionality. And if you have to ask why I use floppies, they are removable, non-flash based memory, and can be write protected. Perfect for transferring data from one network to another. Lots of rpms are small enough to fit on a single floppy, config files, all kinds of things that aren't worth wasting a cd/dvd on. And you can reuse the heck out of them.

Zip drives and Jazz drives were the bomb!

You can mount flash drives as read-only. But even then, you said "transferring data from one network to another". Unless these networks are isolated from each other, why not just use the network to transfer files?

I personally have had data corruption issues with zip drives. Jazz were pretty cool, at least in concept.

[DRanged]

Beginning of last year I needed something off a 3.5 floppy and as I didn't have one anymore got myself an external USB floppy drive that worked surprisingly well.
Ah also the fond memories of using a scsi Plextor Plexwiter PX-R412Ci with caddy as it was the only one you could use to boot and install AIX on RS6000 models 7012-320 and 7012-360 unless you wanted to pay the IBM premium for a CD-Drive.

[programmerjake]

I think I still have a 5.25in 360k floppy somewhere...

[Guest]

I think there's still some utility in having floppy disk code in the kernel. Old computers still exist, and floppies might be the most convenient way to move data to them while airgapping them properly.

[chriswyatt]

Even though not many of us have floppy disk drives now, I still feel like this could be useful for virtualisation purposes. I'm struggling to think of a specific use case though, as I can't remember the last time I mounted a floppy disk in a VM. I've not even done that in a very long time.

[NotMine999]

Zip drives and Jazz drives were the bomb!

I'll see your Zip and Jazz drives and raise you a Bernoulli Box

[NotMine999]

I think I still have a 5.25in 360k floppy somewhere...

I still have those floppies and the hardware to read them ... somewhere.