From: Peter Sherwood (petersherwood@microway.com)
Date: Fri Sep 27 2002 - 15:51:20 EDT
Long about 09/26/2002 Peter Sherwood asked:
> We have been asked whether or not legacy UNIX (4.0F in this case) can
> accomodate DVD drives.
>
> I'm not certain at this point if it is just a DVD reader or
> reader/writer request.
>
> Can you eleborate on DVD with 4.x and 5.x OS version?
meaningful answers were:
I am very sure it can, as there is at least support for the DVD file system.
I once wanted to distribute our software on DVD, as the whole thing could be
fitted in to a 4Gb media at that time. But the AlphaServers can not be
purchased with an internal DVD as any other HPaq PC. But that's not your
problem, I guess.
Yours,
Lars Bro
-=-=-=
We are currently using a Japanese Kubota DVD drive with Unix 5.1 - but
the company which provided us the driver originally had a 4.0 ? version
of it. So I don't think DVD's are only usable on 5.x.
The difficulty really is to find a driver for it. Ours was from
USDesign and it cost $10K!
Aru.
-=-=-=
Yes, it is the same as an CD drive. They use UDF as the file system (Packet
writing), writing DVD's is supported by some open source packages that are
freely available. It will also function as a standard CD reader/writer if
the drive supports such functionality.
Shane Southfield
-=-=-=
Real usable DVD drive support didn't show up until the V5.x stream,
and until about V5.1 or V5.1A (I'd have to go read release notes),
it wasn't really usable. In either V5.1 or V5.1A we finally got to
the point of having it really working reasonably well, able to read
the on-disk file system formats, for example.
There is NO DVD writing support, and no support for things like a
movie player application.
You should point out to the prospective customer that HP support for
V4.0F will END at the end of October. There will probably be one more
final patch kit for both V4.0F and V4.0G some time next year, but no
one is actively working on fixing new problems, and no one is going
to add anything like DVD support into the old releases. They really
should get to V5.1A or later as soon as practical.
Dr. Thomas P. Blinn
-=-=-=
Straight from the ES40 Supported Options List
AlphaServer / AlphaStation ES40 Supported Options List Minimum Operating
System Version
VMS UNIX LINUX
Part No. Description Rst Ver Max Ver
Max
Ver
Max
Storage: DVD
3X-PBXRV-BA
16X HH ATAPI DVDROM CBN Yes 7.2-1 1 4.0F
1
SPT
CD
Matt.Morris
-=-=-=
Hmm, so?
Is anyone using a DVD drive on an Alpha computer running UNIX version 4.0F or 4.0G (was there another 4.0x before 5.x?)?
-- Peter Sherwood <petersherwood@microway.com> Technical Support Direct: 508-732-5542 Main: 508-746-7341 Fax: 508-746-4678 Microway, Inc. - "Technology You Can Count On" http://www.microway.com/
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