Well for USB you have to remember the state of every device plugged into
the system on a permanent basis. Not only is this needed for things like hot
plugging when a device loses its settings as you move it between ports but
also to ensure that when you plug it back in it keeps its old configuration
from last use on this machine.
The amount of state per device isnt really bounded, although I would expect
it to be small. The point I was making is you do this by having a usb daemon
sitting around getting "someone plugged this USB device in, its serial id
is blah, its address is xyz and its a camera" and taking action in user
space accordingly
Policy in user space
The pcmcia services also use this technique.
So it doesnt matter if you are using devfs or not - the daemon will be making
the device files in either and firing things up as needed. It has more to fire
up than just devices though - insert a mouse - perhaps that loads gpm ?
Alan
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