Re: hotplug TTD

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

Andy,

> Well, of course devices need to be configured, but in my mind once we've
> loaded the driver that's half the battle.

This is true enough to be confusing.  For some simple drivers it's the
WHOLE of the battle!

If they show up as filesystem devices, apps use only filesystem-based
discovery (after device connection), and the device is so simple that
it doesn't need more configuration ... then that's enough.  But that's
not going to work for all devices or drivers.


>     If I insert a USB foo device, the
> foo driver is going to be the one who knows how to configure it, yes?

The UNIX convention (inherited by Linux) is that some sysadmin knows
how to configure it, using driver and application/service/tool docs
(or sometimes UTSL) along with site policy knowledge (security, tool
choice, etc) ... when additional configuration is needed.

So no, the driver is NOT going to be the one to know how to configure.
It never has been, as a rule.  There are lots of reasons why, and many
of them can/will be automated through /sbin/hotplug; but there will be
a few cases where sysadmins still need to help out.


> True, some setup info is surely needed. But one of the goals of hotplug is
> you insert the device and it "just works". Won't that be awesome?? ;-)

It _is_ awesome ... just needs more work and a few 2.4.0 patches!  :-)


>     And, I
> remember reading that the latest modutils had some mechanism to pass config
> info, but I haven't looked further..

That's module configuration data, not device configuration data.

It's provided with the "load new module" code paths, and won't
help much with subsequent "similar new device" processing.  Two
distinct problems, in my book.

- Dave




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