Re: More on bigger kdev_t

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
11 Oct 1999 05:19:27 GMT


Followup to: <E11aPnP-00072I-00@the-village.bc.nu>
By author: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> > So what is the best solution?
>
> Every other Unix OS is using 32bit dev_t. That gives easy NFS compatibility,
> and provides enough space.
>

Well, as we noticed before, we can export a 12/20 split over NFS v2 (I
believe this is not an issue over NFS v3 or higher.) However, if we
go to a 64-bit type now -- at least for the kernel-user space
interface -- we greatly reduce the risk of backing ourselves into a
corner that we have to deal with later.

However, I believe Andries already has kdev_t-as-a-pointer working,
and in fact has a bunch of nice properties, which IMO means we might
as well go 32/32 already now (with 12/20 for NFS v2 only.)

-hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!

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