Re: FW: Parallel Tape vs. PacketTwin - pt name clash (fwd)

Hubert Mantel (mantel@suse.de)
Wed, 29 Jul 1998 18:41:44 +0200 (MEST)


Hi,

On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Patrick Ouellette wrote:

> Option 4 is not nice, ignoring a problem will only create larger
> ones later. A person using SuSE decides they need PacketTwin
> support, so they grab a kernel source tree and compile their own
> and boom - instant problem.

No, there's no problem with compiling the driver. You do have a problem
when you want to build both pt drivers in the same go. We just deleted the
precompiled module from the distribution.

Also, if both modules are present in the system, there could be problems
regarding kerneld (which one would it try to load).

> >(4) Another solution is to let the distribution builders find their own
> > ways around the problem - in other words, to ignore it. SuSE omitted
> > the PacketTwin from their configuration.
>
>
> Option 5 is not a good option, you claim it will only happen to people
> who are making distributions. I claim it could happen to anyone who
> copiles their own custom kernel. Changing the Makefile to fix a programming
> error sounds like something M$ would do (smile - that's a joke).
>
> >(5) Finally, we could deal with this by fixing the Makefile to
> > abort with a clear explanation when it detects that a module of
> > the same name is already linked into linux/modules. This is
> > arguably the correct fix - since the probability of this
> > happening to anyone except a distribution builder is
> > effectively nil.
>
> Basically I see this as a person having great intentions, creating a
> useful piece of software, but not following through on the development
> by researching the driver name before releasing the driver to the world.
>
> This raises the question - who is responsible for coordinating device
> driver names and numbers for the kernel? If no one is, this will happen
> again in the future as support for more devices are added by more people
> with less experience. (For those who say put your money where your mouth
> is, I would be willing to maintain such a database if it does not already
> exist.)

The Packetwin driver does not need an entry in /dev. There's no clash with
device major numbers, but only with the name of the module.

> Pat
>
> pouellet@eng.utoledo.edu
-o)
Hubert /\\
_\_v

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html