Re: PROPOSAL: /proc/dev

Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.CSIRO.AU)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:01:41 +1100


C. Scott Ananian writes:
> On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Richard Gooch wrote:
>
> > C. Scott Ananian writes:
>
> > > I assume that this means that I can make a chroot jail using *only*
> > > old-style dev entries (forgoing the new-fangled devfs) if I like?
> > > If not, why not?
> >
> > Drivers not converted to support devfs will require ordinary device
> > nodes. Those nodes may reside on a devfs just like on any other FS.
> > Does that answer your question?
>
> Why not support old-style device nodes as backwards-compatibility
> barnacles *even for* drivers converted to use devfs? That way we have the
> benefits of both the old (simple chroot jails) and new (more flexible
> device naming, etc) systems? Why break stuff we don't have to?

Well, one thing that may prevent that is if adding devfs support to
some drivers and maintaining backward compatibility in the same kernel
image is messy to do. I dunno.

Another reason is that during development it may be handy to be able
to umount /devfs and see what breaks. I've already found one bug that
way.

However, if there isn't a problem with having devfs support and
major&minor support for a driver *at the same time*, then I'll allow
it and use a config option (I still want to be able to disable support
for major&minors).

I'm about to start hacking the SCSI disc driver, so that will give me
some more background.

Regards,

Richard....