Re: udev sysfs docs Re: State of devfs in 2.6?

Andreas Jellinghaus
2003-12-09T09:47:15Z

maybe add this to the faq?

Q: devfs did load drivers when someone tried to open() a non existing
device. will sysfs/hotplug/udev do this?

A: there is no need to. hotplug/sysfs/udev will create devices for all
hardware supported by the kernel and the available modules. it will do
that during boot up, and whenever new hardware is added. so you can expect
all devices be already present, no need for a devfs like mechanism.

Q: but what if a device is still missing?
A: in that case neither the linux kernel nor the available modules support
that hardware, so there is nothing hotplug/sysfs/udev can do about it.
If you add modules and [FIXME: how to update the module maps] and
[FIXME: remove and attach again or do ... to spawn hotplug events] the
kernel will load the modules and udev will create the device files.

Andreas