From owner-cvs-all Sat Feb 14 17:43:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA00361 for cvs-all-outgoing; Sat, 14 Feb 1998 17:43:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA00338; Sat, 14 Feb 1998 17:43:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from toor@dyson.iquest.net) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA00354; Sat, 14 Feb 1998 20:43:17 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from toor) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199802150143.UAA00354@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: devfs persistence In-Reply-To: <199802150115.MAA10615@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from Bruce Evans at "Feb 15, 98 12:15:39 pm" To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 20:43:16 -0500 (EST) Cc: dyson@FreeBSD.ORG, wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu, committers@FreeBSD.ORG, eivind@yes.no X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Bruce Evans said: > >There are (at least) two usages of FreeBSD. One is standard U**X type > >things, and the other is embedded controllers. DEVFS is especially > >useful for embedded (not all NFS servers can provide device nodes, for > >example.) > > Use mfs. > That is a non-starter, and only adds yet another layer of complexity. Devfs is a good idea for certain applications. (Have *you* actually used MFS in an embedded application, with heterogeneous products, mostly (only) to support device nodes?, answer: it is a kludge.) It is an issue of being able to cleanly and straightforwardly support embedded products. Of course, MFS can be used, but it isn't all that good a solution. I am looking for supporting a better solution. If we can come up with a better alternative than DEVFS, I would be for that. MFS as it is today, isn't the answer. I don't think that devfs is something that we should always use on a GP system, so we still need to support a non-devfs capability (and likely that (the non-devfs) will be the primary usage.) Sort of like echo and other filter type UNIX shell tools don't make a good text editor, using std disk or NFS filesystem nodes for devices don't make it as clean and easy for supporting certain kinds of embedded products. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@freebsd.org | it just makes you look stupid, jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message