Re: [RFT] #2 Support for ~2144 SCSI discs

Richard Gooch
2001-08-02T15:47:41Z

Alan Cox writes:
> > So, yes, you can already patch other subsystems to dynamically assign
> > major numbers in 2.4.7. I'd like to see people do that. My patch for
> > sd.c can also serve as a demonstration on how to use the new API.
>
> Its a bit of an ugly hack but I guess its the best anyone can put
> together for a 2.4 kernel tree. Going to a 32bit dev_t is going to
> make life so much simpler do all of this without ugly hacks

My patch is definately 2.4 material. I see it as a temporary solution
until the whole block I/O subsystem is ripped out and replaced in 2.5.
Since 2.4 will be the latest production kernel for about two years, we
need to find ways of working around current limitations.

That said, in 2.5 I want to see us move away from using device numbers
as the fundamental device handle and move to device instance
structures. That's a lot cleaner, and BTW is devfs-neutral
(i.e. doesn't need devfs to work). Exposing a 32 bit dev_t to
user-space is acceptable, but internally it should be shunned.