From owner-freebsd-current Wed Oct 2 0:25: 9 2002 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 26C4D37B401 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 00:25:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55A6D43E81 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 00:25:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id g927Oj0U070348; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 09:24:45 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Bruce Evans Cc: Sheldon Hearn , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: HEADSUP! GEOM as default in 5 days... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 02 Oct 2002 17:26:08 +1000." <20021002172300.V4620-100000@gamplex.bde.org> Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 09:24:45 +0200 Message-ID: <70347.1033543485@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <20021002172300.V4620-100000@gamplex.bde.org>, Bruce Evans writes: >On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Sheldon Hearn wrote: > >> On (2002/10/02 16:27), Bruce Evans wrote: >> >> > It is a devfs issue that devfs moves things into the kernel where they >> > harder to control and more fatal if they are got wrong. >> >> If it's just ownerships and permissions you're worried about, I think >> the issue could be made moot by some /etc support for devfs(1). >> >> In fact, as the loudest supporter of MAKEDEV, you might be the best >> person to drive its transcription into /etc/defaults/devfs.conf. :-) > >I don't really like MAKEDEV. It is creating work and bugs by moving >problems around that I object to. So you don't like DEVFS and you don't like MAKEDEV. Say, how _do_ you access your devices Bruce ? :-) As various people have heard me whine about at conferences for some years now, devices were the first thing that broke the "UNIX filesystem model". Manually hacking a numeric index from a kernel table into filesystem nodes is just plain wrong, it is however better than what they did before where they hardwired inode numbers to devices. The next big mistake was networking. The "unix filesystem model" would have me open("/net/tcp/www.freebsd.org/80", "r"), not socket(...), bind(...), connect(...). I'll just silently (well, not quite) pass on the sysV IPC fiasco. As long as we operate under the "It must be bug-compatible with everything in the world", we will never be able to properly fix these issues which is too bad, but that's life for us. In the meantime, DEVFS is the best I could come up with which makes life simpler for users, developers and administrators, and still retains as many of the flaws as we want to keep. Like it or not, unless you have a better alternative you'll be stuck with it. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message