----- Original Message ----- From: "Sergey Mkrtchyan" <physwalker@gmail.com> To: <opensuse@opensuse.org> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 12:15 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] hard drive pause when moving a laptop

On Thursday 28 August 2008 12:06:32 pm Brian K. White wrote:

...

It's there to ward against the day you drop your laptop, or I suppose the day you use it to bash over the head of a mugger. By the time it hits the floor (by the time it moves even 1cm toward the floor, or the muggers head) the head should be parked and because of that, most likely even if the laptop is destroyed the drive will still work in some other laptop or in a usb drive enclosure so you don't lose any data. (unless the mugger wasn't fazed and ran off with your laptop.)

I don't know if there is a linux answer for the feature (perhaps an acpi event ?)

Nice to know. Thanks a lot. Well the laptop will be probably the last thing I'd like to bash over the head of the mugger ;-)

It's a Thinkpad, you can probably hammer nails with it. Then again... It's a Thinkpad, it was so expensive you probably want to encase it in thick foam with silk lining and guarded by a large dog every time you turn it off. I know I always lay the little microfiber cloth that came with my Vaio TZ over the keys before closing the lid. Which I never bothered to do before, despite the fact that that last/extra 5% of convenience was the main reason I even paid so much for this particular machine instead of getting a Dell m1330. (that and the fact that I could go to the store and play with a TZ but I couldn't find an m1330 anywhere) wow I went from OT to OOT. If I could somehow work in something about web comics it could be OT, OOT, OOTS! -- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:10:55 jdd sur free wrote:

Brian K. White a écrit :

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I don't know if there is a linux answer for the feature (perhaps an acpi event ?)

IMHO windows have no way to know you are moving your laptop (no accelerometer on board, nor GPS), but probably it parks heads more often when disconnected from main supply.

Actually, some laptops (notably ThinkPads) do have accelerometers on board to detect the case of the laptop being dropped and park the heads accordingly. I seem to recall that there are drivers in the vanilla kernel source code for the accelerometers in these laptops, although I thought that last time I compiled a kernel (which was, admittedly, several versions ago) that they were experimental... Regards, -- =================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au =================================================== You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today.

On Thursday 28 August 2008 23:17, jdd sur free wrote:

Rodney Baker a écrit :

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Actually, some laptops (notably ThinkPads) do have accelerometers on board to detect the case of the laptop being dropped and park the heads accordingly.

are you joking? in case of drop down, with ~80g acceleration, no head mechanism will be fast enough to park any head.

The detect the start of the fall, of course. The transition from 1G (stationary) to 0G (falling). Long before the device hits the ground, the heads are away from the platter and parked.

if there is an accelerometer, there must be an other use

Lots of laptops have accelerometers, now. The newer MacBooks have them and they can be accessed by user-level software leading some to write games of the variety "roll the ball through the maze" and whatnot. They're also used as motion detectors for theft alarms that can trigger a lock-down, noise-making and whatnot. I'm not sure how effective that would be, but it shows that people are imaginative about what you can do with different kinds of sensors. In the original IBM adds they repeated the phrase "it braces for impact" several times. Hardly technically apt, but I suppose it gets the idea across to the masses of those who work in the same garb as the guys in that ad (suit and tie).

jdd

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 29 August 2008 07:00, jdd sur free wrote:

Randall R Schulz a écrit :

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Lots of laptops have accelerometers, now.

interesting. is this a yes/no system (move/still) or is there a measure?

I don't know, but I doubt you could build a navigation system with it. I think you get some quantitative information, but I doubt it's either very precise or very accurate.

...

I often wonder why all theses friendly things are not better documented and showed on screen :-))

Documentation is for wimps. If it was hard to create, it should be hard to use.

jdd

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 8/28/08, Joop Beris <opensuse@beris.nl> wrote:

On Thursday 28 August 2008, Sergey Mkrtchyan wrote:

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I was wondering if it is safe to move laptop around while turned on. When I first got it (with Vista) there was some software which was pausing the hard drive while moving. Well, after couple of days I fot rid of vista, so I was thinking if there is any similiar program for opensuse and if it is necessary.

I move my laptop around often when it is running. Mind you, I take care not to bang it too hard against something. It's a piece of electronics, so I tend to be a bit careful with it. However, all laptops that I've had so far, have been moved while running. I've never had a problem doing so. Just don't give it any sudden shocks or jolts, it should be fine.

Joop

Its not the electronics I worry about, it is the disk drive which has mechanical pieces that are in motion. I have no testing, etc. to support this but.... I try to move the laptop laterally (left/right, forward/backward) when possible. If I do have to lift it or rotate it while the disk is spinning, I do so very slowly. My thinking is that the disk head is "flying" just above the platter. So a sudden up or down motion is more likely to cause the head to hit the platter. (a bad thing.) Since the platter is spinning, rotating the laptop will cause a gyroscopic force to try and accelerate the platter even faster. Not sure that is a big deal, but it makes me uncomfortable to think about. Somehow I just don't think a disk drive is designed to handle gyroscopic force. (Or maybe it is??) Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 28 August 2008 05:41:39 pm Greg Freemyer wrote:

Since the platter is spinning, rotating the laptop will cause a gyroscopic force to try and accelerate the platter even faster. Not sure that is a big deal, but it makes me uncomfortable to think about. Somehow I just don't think a disk drive is designed to handle gyroscopic force. (Or maybe it is??)

As Randall already said I also really don't think rotation in any way can affect the hard drive to accelerate, and probably that would be the harmless way out of all. I thought hard drives work somewhat in a similar way to gramphone vinyl disks reading off the music with the "needle" (but this is probably stupid). So any kind of kicks will probably "scratch" the hard drive but not the faster rotation, maybe. -- Sergey Mkrtchyan, Graduate Student @ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org