Comment 11 for bug 139881

Ben Collins wrote:
> This is a huge invasive patch that touches core block layer, core scsi, core libata and core ide subsystems.
> That's way too scary for us to consider maintaining ourselves.

 Evgeni Golov (the package maintainer) wrote:
> not a bug in hdapsd, needs support in the kernel

That's fine, but until the situation changes, with either the kernel providing support or hdapsd no longer needing it, please consider either removing the hdapsd package from Ubuntu, or otherwise modify it to make it clear to unsuspecting users that the package is only usable by people maintaining their own kernels. At the moment, the presence of hdapsd seems at best misleading, as the code is useless without kernel support, as indicated by the package maintainer.

A simple patch would be:

--- /etc/init.d/hdapsd 2008-01-20 22:50:24.000000000 -0500
+++ hdapsd 2008-01-21 00:46:16.000000000 -0500
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
 do_checkprotect()
 {
  if [ ! -f /sys/block/$DISK/queue/protect ]; then
- log_warning_msg "Not starting $NAME: /sys/block/$DISK/queue/protect does not exist"
+ log_warning_msg "Not starting $NAME: /sys/block/$DISK/queue/protect does not exist. hdapsd requires a kernel patch. See http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/HDAPS#Disk_head_parking."
   exit 0
  fi
 }

and add the same disclaimer to the package description.