From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262450AbTJNNo3 (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Oct 2003 09:44:29 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262501AbTJNNo3 (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Oct 2003 09:44:29 -0400 Received: from mail-05.iinet.net.au ([203.59.3.37]:61642 "HELO mail.iinet.net.au") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S262450AbTJNNo0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Oct 2003 09:44:26 -0400 Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:51:43 +0800 (WST) From: Ian Kent To: =?iso-8859-1?q?M=E5ns_Rullg=E5rd?= cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: devfs vs. udev In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Måns Rullgård wrote: > Andreas Jellinghaus writes: > > >> I noticed this in the help text for devfs in 2.6.0-test6: > >> > >> Note that devfs has been obsoleted by udev, > > > > devfs works fine, lists all devices, and obsoletes makedev. > > That's my experience. > > > udev needs patching for several issues, current sysfs only exports > > many but by far not all devices, and because of that makedev > > is still needed to create an initial /dev. > > > > in short: devfs works fine. udev has quite a way to go. > > so marking devfs obsolete was done too soon by far. but > > Exactly my point. > > I'd also like an explanation of the rationale behind the switch. > devfs works and is stable. Why replace it with an incomplete fragile > userspace solution? I recall reading something about the original > author not updating devfs recently, but I can't see why that requires > rewriting it from scratch. Sorry to interrupt. I have had a look at the code and looked around a bit and I'm left with two questions. 1) What are the problems with devfs. I can't seem to find anything specific? 2) I believe udev does not support for an increased number of anonymous devices for such things as NFS and autofs mounts. I can't see anything in the kernel (2.6) to improve this either. Can devfs provide improvements for this without to much pain? -- ,-._|\ Ian Kent / \ Perth, Western Australia *_.--._/ E-mail: raven@themaw.net v Web: http://themaw.net/