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potential problems with floppy drives and Executor 1.2.1 / HFS_XFer 2.1
Dear Folks,
A subtle error crept into the development of Executor 1.2.1 and the
nature of the error combined with our testing process let it slip
into the official release.
The nature of the problem is that you may find that Executor or
HFS_XFer refuses to believe that a freshly inserted floppy is
actually a removable medium. Hence, it doesn't let you eject the
floppy, nor does it eject the floppy when it's done.
The solution is really simple. While you're not running Executor or
HFS_XFer, remove the directory /usr/filesystems/HFS_XFer.fs. You'll
probably need to do this using the "su" command or logged in as root.
For the curious, the problem is that we modified the utility that
communicates information about newly inserted disks. However, the
way the utility is installed is Executor or HFS_XFer notice when the
utility is not there, and write a new copy if it's not. The problem
is that new versions of Executor and HFS_XFer carry the new utility,
and are incompatible with the old utility, BUT the new versions of
Executor and HFS_XFer don't replace the old utility with the new
utility unless the old utility has been removed.
Why didn't our testing catch this? Well, we delete all traces of
Executor from the machines that we're going to test new versions on
so that we don't accidently rely on something that was left behind
from the old version. It never dawned on us that there could be the
opposite problem.
--Cliff