PPC Kernel Update HDD LED nerves

[Larry Grover]

Eric Dunbar wrote:

> The "throbbing sleep light" or "sleep light" (for pre-throb G3s ;-)
> should ONLY be used for sleeping. It's EXTREMELY irritating to have
> that light flashing whenever there's disk access. Not only that, but I
> question the safety of doing so -- the circuitry for that sleep
> indicator was never designed to handle this.

A different perspective:  I don't find this feature irritating.  I 
like it.

One of the first linux distros I tried on my iBook (maybe YDL 3.0?) 
had this feature, and I was quite fond of it.  I've missed it, and I'm 
glad to see it in Ubuntu.  I hope it remains, unless it really is 
damaging to the hardware.

Do you have any evidence that this this use of the "sleep" light is 
actually damaging?

> What I don't understand is why this change was made in the first
> place. It violates two rules.
> 
> #1 it runs COMPLETELY counter to what Macintosh users expect and adds
> LITTLE to NOTHING to the computing experience while detracting from it
> (this ain't exactly a small little UNOBTRUSIVE LED that we're talking
> about) (and, of course, we Mac users do tend to expect more from our
> computers than our i86 counterparts since we're spoiled with nothing
> but the best in design... none of those million and one LEDs and other
> crap like that).

Please don't assume to speak for all Mac users.  I appreciate what 
Apple has done with their hardware and their OS, but I don't expect 
linux to behave like OS X, nor do I expect OS X to behave like linux.

Regards,
Larry