I agree this has to be done in the 2.2 time frame. We've been through this
over and over again, and there probably no point in re-iterating all the
arguments. Somebody just needs to provide a set of patches, and we'll see
what will break. glibc already made a decision: dev_t is going to be 64 bits.
(Of course, the Linux kernel could still use something else, but it looks
like an acceptable decision - especially as libc 6 clients don't know
what the in-kernel dev_t is, anyways).
The remaining question is how to divide the 64 bits between major and minor
number. Linus claims this is not an issue. I don't agree, because file
systems have to know how to convert the old dev_t to the new dev_t, or
better, there has to be a conversion somewhere.
Finally, we need a file system that can actually store the new dev_t. I
understand the latest ext2 has patches for this, and it uses 64 bits for
dev_t as well. This should probably be incorporated around the same time
when the other patches are available.
Regards,
Martin