udev - please help me to understand

[Steve Youngs <sryoungs@bigpond.net.au>]

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Hi Greg!

I've been looking at this "udev" thingy and I can't for the life of me
see why I'd need it.  There doesn't appear to be _any_ advantages of
using udev in my present situation.

No, I don't use devfs.

I have zero hot-pluggable devices (that might change somewhere in the
distant future, but for now I don't have any).  And never in my wildest
dreams could I ever imagine running out of device numbers.

Reading through the documentation that I've found about udev, your
main points seem to be about:

        - udev vs devfs
        - running out of device major/minor numbers
        - not having to worry about major/minor numbers

For me, the first point is moot because I don't use devfs.  The second
point is just plain ridiculous, there is just _no_ way that it could
happen (remember that I'm talking about my own situation).  

As for the third point, well, I don't worry about device numbers now.
In the years that I've been using Linux (since 2.0.something) you
could probably count the number of times I've had to worry about
major/minor numbers on the fingers of one hand.  The _only_ times
have been on those incredibly rare occasions when I've needed to
create a new device file in /dev/.

So, Greg, is there _any_ reason why I'd want to be using udev?

I have other questions, but they can wait until I know whether or not
I need the thing in the first place.

Thank you very much for your time and patience.

-- 
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