Re: UIO device name

Ben Nizette
2008-09-24T22:57:55Z

On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 14:38 +0200, Joakim Tjernlund wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 20:47 +0900, Paul Mundt wrote:
> > >
> > Nonsense, there is nothing wrong with UIO's interface as it is today.
> > It is no different from sound cards, cdroms, and so on. If you want the
>
> It is different, cdroms and audio are named differently. If they were
> using UIO they would all be named /dev/uio%d.
>
> Consider uio_cif and uio_smx, is it impossible to image that such
> devices could use another name such as crypto_smx%d instead?
>

My system does use uio_smx and uio_pdrv, they both appear as /dev/uioX.
This to me is just like having /dev/hda, /dev/hdb rather
than /dev/myrootpartition, /dev/somebackupspace or whatever. In this
case you do have a /dev/cdrom symlink but it's just that, a symlink set
up by scripts. The kernel doesn't (and shouldn't) make that naming
decision for you.

My software just walks /sys/class/uio/uioX/name, finds the one which
matches then opens the corresponding device. No scripts needed, no
in-kernel hackery or policy making, just the interface used as the maker
intended. What's your problem with this approach?

The only software you need is the software you have anyway, the stuff
which opens the device also discovers which device to open.

--Ben.