From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Tomasz Torcz Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 01:09:32 +0000 Subject: Re: On demand modules loading with {tmp,ram}fs and udev Message-Id: List-Id: References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-hotplug@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 05:42:34PM -0700, Greg KH wrote: > On Sat, Oct 25, 2003 at 02:00:18AM +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I was thinking about small addition to tmpfs. When mounted with 'dev' > > option, any lookup of non existing file should result in calling > > modprobe with filename as argument. > > When coupled with mount tmpfs over /dev (or /udev) this functionality > > would allow on-demand module loading (as with devfs and plain old > > device nodes). > > How will you do the mapping of /dev names to modules in kernel space? > How are you going to know which of the 50 or so sound drivers to load > when opening /dev/dsp? Just call modprobe. Modprobe will check /etc/modprobe.conf for dsp aliases and load module. Then udev will make devnode. > And what's wrong with the current scheme of, "load a driver when the > device is seen"? This is how Linux currently works, and has been moving > to for quite some time. In the past we didn't have that capability, so > the "load the driver when we open the /dev node" hack was added. Few days ago I did dd if=something of=/dev/floppy/0; then I saw in logs that floppy module was loaded. That was because I use devfs which run modprobe when it's needed. With udev dd would fail with non-existant /dev/floppy/0. There is no mechanism to call modprobe. I'm also surprised that"load the driver when we open the /dev node" is a hack. I get used to this standard Linux functionality as something obvious. Other OSed (*BSD, Solaris etc.) don't work like that? -- Tomasz Torcz There exists no separation between gods and men: zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl one blends softly casual into the other. Please CC. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: The SF.net Donation Program. Do you like what SourceForge.net is doing for the Open Source Community? Make a contribution, and help us add new features and functionality. Click here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ _______________________________________________ Linux-hotplug-devel mailing list http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net Linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-hotplug-devel