Date: Wed, 19 Apr 95 12:00:41 MDT From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: simonm@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Dougal) Cc: hackers@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Re: [DEVFS] your opinions sought! Message-ID: <9504191800.AA19187@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <199504191528.IAA22087@freefall.cdrom.com> from "Dougal" at Apr 19, 95 03:28:00 pm
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> You know, I thought the major advantage of having a /dev directory is > that the kernel doesn't have to know the names of all the various > devices, because this mapping is specified by the filesystem. The > devfs is about to hardwire all this stuff in, at the expense of some > kernel bloat. Not true. It is a device-install-time wiring that occurs; the only think that will be wired is the relationship between node names and actual devices. This is erroneously missing from the /dev implementation. Please see my previous post on the merits of a devfs. I list at least 8 salient points in favor. > Well, it's perfectly feasible (and adds less kernel bloat) to query > the kernel at boot time for attached devices and build up the /dev > directory based on the information. This IMHO is a better solution > than the devfs. Trade the kernel bloat of devfs for the bloat removal of killing specfs. > I hope this doesn't mean that some future things will actually > *require* the devfs, please keep it optional. I think remote boot and expanding minor numbers used as bit selectors *require* a devfs to support remote boot from older (ie: Sun) machines. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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