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Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 17:26:30 -0400
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
From: dennis <dennis@etinc.com>
Subject: Re: pci probes with multiple "units" (MORE) 
Cc: "Daniel O'Callaghan" <danny@panda.hilink.com.au>, hackers@freebsd.org
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At 09:15 PM 4/27/97 -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
>> The driver name should tell you what kind of hardware you have, as
>> it the unix *way*....with linux you dont have a damn clue what you
>> have in there.
>
>Well, actually, some people have suggested that the best approach
>would a hybrid of the two approaches: If you want to see what you've
>got, the boot messages and/or `ifconfig -a' will show you what you
>have in the classic "unix way" (or "unix *way*" :-).  If, on the other
>hand, you could really give a damn about it and just wanted to write
>an rc script which brought up "the ethernet card", be that a 3COM
>3c595 or a DEC DC21041, then you should also have a "symbolic" name
>for each device like "eth0, eth1, .." and so on.  The symbolic name
>wouldn't show up in ifc chain, being implemented instead by ifconfig
>as a sort of alias, and so nothing else would be confused by this
>(save, perhaps, the system administrator who suddenly encounters this
>for the first time and is seriously puzzled at this phantom device
>which just magically works :-).

My feelings on this is that any aliasing or internalization of this adds
confusion particularly those which cant follow the discussion above.
I think its important, and quite possible, to maintain simplicity while
improving functionality. The assumption that all unix users today
are adept at device configuration is becoming less and less valid
over time. 

db