Re: PROPOSAL: /proc/dev
Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.CSIRO.AU)
Tue, 6 Jan 1998 20:45:00 +1100
Kevin Lentin writes:
> On Mon, Jan 05, 1998 at 12:22:15PM -0600, Michael Elizabeth Chastain wrote:
> > One feature of devfs is that it gets rid of major and minor numbers.
> > In some other way, /dev/foo gets associated with the foo driver.
> >
> > Hmmm, perhaps this advantage could be separated out and made to work
> > with the existing system. A new major number of "auto-resolve" would
> > cause the kernel to resolve the filename to a device driver. I don't
> > know if this is a feasible idea or not.
>
> One side effect of all this is that /dev/cdrom will _have_ to be a symlink
> now. Device naming policy is now a kernel issue and no longer an admin
> issue.
Probably a good thing as it allows driver writers to enforce a known
standard interface name.
> A second point. More a question. Under the new devfs scheme can I put
> devices in other parts of the filesystem? If there are no major/minor
> numbers, can I create a device file called 'core' that is really /dev/null
> (without using a symlink)? Sure, symlinks work almost all of the time but
> there are cases where you might want a device somewhere else.
Nope: if CONFIG_DEVFS is enabled then drivers can only be accessed
through devfs and symlinks to devfs.
Regards,
Richard....