/dev/raw support?

[Alan Shutko]

Stéphane Borel <stef at via.ecp.fr> writes:

> I don't really know what a raw device is, but vlc uses the block device
> designing your DVD (often /dev/dvd beign a ling to /dev/hdc).

Unbuffered disk access... see ... ick, the message hasn't hit the
archive yet.  Let's see...

http://xine.sourceforge.net/xine_frame.php?page=FAQ mentions it, in
passing, but doesn't describe the benefits.
http://linuxvideo.org/cvs/viewcvs.cgi/oms/FAQ?rev=1.10&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup mentions it too... 

Basically, it skips the overhead of buffered disk devices, and sicne
it isn't buffered, streaming the DVD won't purge everything else from
the buffer cache.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats at acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
Why do we want intelligent terminals  when there are so many stupid users?