Re: [linux-usb-devel] Re: 2.5.26 hotplug failure

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2002 at 08:58:09PM -0700, David Brownell wrote:
> Greg KH wrote:
> >On Fri, Sep 20, 2002 at 07:55:22PM -0700, David Brownell wrote:
> >
> >>How about a facility to create the character (or block?) special file
> >>node right there in the driverfs directory?  Optional of course.
> >
> >
> >No, Linus has stated that this is not ok to do.  See the lkml archives
> >for the whole discussion about this.
> 
> I suspected that'd be the case.  Some pointer into the archives
> would be good, though I'd suspect the basic summary is that it'd
> be too much like devfs that way.  Did the same statement apply to
> adding some file that wasn't a device special file?  That kind
> of solution moves in the "no majors/minors" direction, which I
> thought was the general goal.  Leaves a naming policy debate,
> but one that ought to be more managable (say, with devlabel).

All naming policies are moving to userspace.  It will not be a kernel
issue.

> Though I guess my original reaction still stands then:  I don't
> much want to care about major/minor numbers, so why not just leave
> them out in favor of whatever better solution is the goal?  Save
> everyone the intermediate steps!

No, we need the major/minor number to be in driverfs.  That way the
userspace program (that's running the naming policy) can look at
driverfs to see what devices are present, what the major/minor number of
the device is, what type of device it is, and then create the /dev node
for the device, based on that information.

We are slowly getting there, and I don't see any intermediate steps
along the way (meaning ones that get ripped out later.)

thanks,

greg k-h