From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Apr 19 11:31:42 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id LAA25596 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:31:42 -0700 Received: from irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de [141.76.1.11]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id LAA25579 for ; Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:31:27 -0700 Received: from sax.sax.de by irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de with SMTP (5.67b+/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29531; Wed, 19 Apr 1995 20:30:35 +0200 Received: by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id UAA09408 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Wed, 19 Apr 1995 20:30:33 +0200 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.6.11/8.6.9) id SAA09011 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Wed, 19 Apr 1995 18:23:19 +0200 From: J Wunsch Message-Id: <199504191623.SAA09011@uriah.heep.sax.de> Subject: Re: [DEVFS] your opinions sought! To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD hackers) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 18:23:18 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD hackers) In-Reply-To: <199504190842.DAA04273@mpp.com> from "Mike Pritchard" at Apr 19, 95 03:42:28 am Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 864 Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As Mike Pritchard wrote: > > I have a question: what does the devfs file system get me, and > why would I ever want to use it? From what I've seen so far, it just > looks like a complicated way to access my /dev/* files. I'm also wondering. I've always thought of devfs as a replacement for the current strategy of allocating static entries under /dev (with the inherent problem that the currently configured drivers disagree with the /dev entries, in both ways [driver configured, but no /dev entry -> driver not accessible; /dev entry, but driver not configured -> ENXIO]). This way, each driver would be responsible to claim its /dev entries after it succesfully configured the device. Seen this way on DG/UX. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)