Understanding the rationale behind dropping of "block devices"

[John-Mark Gurney]

Aijaz Baig wrote this message on Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 14:19 +0530:
> Nevertheless my question still holds. What does 'removing support for block
> device' mean in this context? Was what I mentioned earlier with regards to
> my understanding correct? Viz. all disk devices now have a character (or
> raw) interface and are no longer served via the "page cache" but rather the
> "buffer cache". Does that mean all disk accesses are now direct by passing
> the file system??

One of the other reasons block devices were removed was that if there
was a write error on the underlying device, there was no way for the
writer to know that the write failed.  This could/would lead to corrupted
data which is bad.

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."