However, apparently this CMOS option is not available on all models. On some models, both options may be required, on others, none are required. More info about IBM Tinkpads on Linux can be found here . The major device number for the floppy drives is 2. It ranges from 0 to 3 for drives connected to the first controller, and from 4 to 7 for drives connected to the second controller.
Type is the type of the drive or media.
Initially this letter described the type of the drive and not the type of the media in the drive. For instance, a format meant for accessing 720k double density disks in a high density drive was called h720k and not d720k. The format of the disk is already implied by the capacity, and so the type letter is used to describe the type of the drive . When support for extra density drives was added to the kernel, people still used the name H1440 for accessing high density disks using their extra density drive. By the way, several distribution use this scheme.