Re: [PATCH] driver-core: devtmpfs - driver core maintained /dev tmpfs

Kay Sievers
2009-05-07T02:09:05Z

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 03:41, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:23:42 +0200
> Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org> wrote:
>
>> From: Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
>> Subject: driver-core: devtmpfs - driver core maintained /dev tmpfs
>>
>> Devtmpfs lets the kernel create a tmpfs very early at kernel
>> initialization, before any driver core device is registered. Every
>> device with a major/minor will have a device node created in this
>> tmpfs instance. After the rootfs is mounted by the kernel, the
>> populated tmpfs is mounted at /dev. In initramfs, it can be moved
>> to the manually mounted root filesystem before /sbin/init is
>> executed.
>
> so just to state the obvious: this code is not needed to boot fast.
> It is mostly a workaround for having a bad initrd; if you don't use an
> initrd, or if you use an initrd that's made with the right device nodes
> in it already, you really just don't need this.
>
> I would much rather that you just fix your initrd... than to put this
> sort of thing into the kernel....

How will you solve the dynamic device numbers? They are a complete
reality today.

Thanks,
Kay