Re: Adding PCMCIA support to the kernel tree -- developers needed.

[Oliver Neukum <Oliver.Neukum@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>]

> > There's the little issue of a very limited device node space.
>
> You don't necessarily have to expand it, you just need to use it with
> care.

If you want stable names based on bus position then you absolutely
need to expand it. For USB at least you have no other way to get a stable 
name.

> > That doesn't mean that I don't agree with the diagnosis.
> > I just don't see a way to implement the remedy cleanly.
>
> Well, I think letting the hotplug program decide what the device will
> appear as (the name or possibly also major/minor numbers) could work?

I believe it could work, but at the same time I think it is a very bad idea.

a) How do you operate during system start ?
b) How do you do the transition ?
c) How do you handle locking ? You need total mutual exclusion.
d) How do you handle an error in the hotplug agent ?
e) What other algorithmus that couldn't be trivially implemented in kernel do 
you want to use ?

Either you use stable names, or you let the kernel decide the name and
give it to the  hotplug agent.
The first approach isn't all that good because it ruins things like 
/dev/videoX or /dev/audioX.
The second requires hotplug notification on device registration.

	Regards
		Oliver

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