From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265271AbTLaUTa (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:19:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265273AbTLaUTa (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:19:30 -0500 Received: from imf25aec.mail.bellsouth.net ([205.152.59.73]:2545 "EHLO imf25aec.mail.bellsouth.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265271AbTLaUT2 (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:19:28 -0500 Subject: Re: udev and devfs - The final word From: Rob Love To: Pascal Schmidt Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Greg KH In-Reply-To: <20031231192306.GG25389@kroah.com> References: <18Cz7-7Ep-7@gated-at.bofh.it> <20031231192306.GG25389@kroah.com> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1072901961.11003.14.camel@fur> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.5 (1.4.5-8) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:19:22 -0500 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2003-12-31 at 14:23, Greg KH wrote: > What benefit would there be in "random" numbers? More compressed number > space by giving out numbers sequentially? That is one advantage. > Or less having to work with the numbers because they become just > cookies and never need to be inspected except in very small parts of > the kernel? Yup, especially this one. It is not so much "let's make the device numbers random" but "let's just not care what they are." We can get to the point where we don't even need the explicit concept of device numbers, but just "any old unique value" to use as a cookie. The kernel can pull that number from anywhere, and notify user-space via udev ala hotplug. Rob Love