From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 7 01:30:07 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3372416A4B3 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:30:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ecsd.com (rwhois.transbay.net [209.133.53.11]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A62A243F85 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:30:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ecsd@ecsd.com) Received: from ecsd.com (ecsd.transbay.net [209.133.53.31]) by ecsd.com (8.11.6p2/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h978dMn00648 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:39:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3F8279C5.9070300@ecsd.com> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 01:31:01 -0700 From: ecsd User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20031003 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: cannot create partition entries for /dev/ad3 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 08:30:07 -0000 Poul-Henning Kamp writes: >In message <3F825BED.8080002@ecsd.com>, ecsd writes: >>with MAKEDEV gone, the mystery is how to use devfs. >>In /dev I have ad3, but I cannot "disklabel -e /dev/ad3s1d", >>nor can I "disklabel -e /dev/ad3", and I can't determine >>what minor device numbers to assign for mknod to create >>the partition entries. > >Try > bsdlabel -w /dev/ad3 bsdlabel does not exist on my system as a preinstalled script or program, or as a port: FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE #2 MAKEDEV was the cheese since year zero. Removing it as of 5.0 invalidates everything written about creating devices in everything in print and in almost all of the online documentation on freebsd.org. Documentation for devfs is nearly nonexistent. The man page suggests that now I will be learning a language (!) for specifying what devices to create, based in some hazy way on the kernel config file. Something I've read suggests that "devices will be created as needed" using devfs. I looked for any discussion of devfs in the Release Notes for 5.0 and 5.1 and found that it was only barely mentioned. With such a major change - literally invalidating every How-To written to date about devices - where is a discursive description of the workings of devfs? Might it be a good idea to provide a stub /dev/MAKEDEV, so that such a thing would exist, for people still buying FreeBSD books off the shelf today? That script could either just say "sorry, MAKEDEV is replaced by devfs(8)", or it could use devfs to emulate what MAKEDEV did, which I think is the preferred option to support the majority of users who'll be happy when they can use the parlor table book of bsd to set up their home PC as a DVD player. I have a WintTV card that should be /dev/bktr0. I have tried using "devfs" to remedy this: host[157] # fxtv open("/dev/bktr0") failed: No such file or directory but I cannot see what to do, precisely and in order, to make the device exist. I can't tell if use of devfs makes permanent changes to a system definition file so that changes are retained across reboots. I don't see a reference to a system file I would modify to make devices exist. The man page for devfs does not provide an example of creating a device - or if it does, it doesn't explain what /other/ commands are needed in tandem to make the device usable (extant.) If devfs will create devices to correspond to devices defined in the kernel config file, then where is the bktr device? Is there any more comprehensive documentation for the DEVFS and devfs and usage to replace MAKEDEV? As is, I have devices I need to access but can't. Have I left something out of the kernel gen process? Is 5.0 screwed? ARGH!!