-----Original Message-----
From: Christoph Hellwig [mailto:hch@infradead.org]
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2011 12:07 PM
To: KY Srinivasan
Cc: Christoph Hellwig; Greg KH; gregkh@suse.de; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org;
devel@linuxdriverproject.org; virtualization@lists.osdl.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/25] Staging: hv: Cleanup vmbus driver code

On Sun, May 01, 2011 at 03:46:23PM +0000, KY Srinivasan wrote:

quoted

What is the issue here? This is no different than what is done in other
Virtualization platforms. For instance, the Xen blkfront driver is no
different - if you specify the block device to be presented to the guest
as an ide device, it will register for the appropriate ide major number.

No, it won't - at least not in mainline just because it's so buggy.
If distros keep that crap around I can only recommed you to not use
them.

Christoph,

Could you elaborate on the problems/issues when the block driver registers for the 
IDE majors. On the Qemu side, we have a mechanism to disable the emulation when 
PV drivers load. I don't think there is an equivalent mechanism on the Windows side.
So, as far as I know, registering for the IDE majors is the only way to also prevent native
drivers in Linux from taking control of the emulated device. 

Regards,

K. Y