From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266186AbUBJTqZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:46:25 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266187AbUBJTqZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:46:25 -0500 Received: from zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com ([47.129.242.57]:28397 "EHLO zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266186AbUBJTqX (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:46:23 -0500 Message-ID: <40293508.1040803@nortelnetworks.com> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:46:16 -0500 X-Sybari-Space: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 From: Chris Friesen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Bell Cc: Greg KH , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: devfs vs udev, thoughts from a devfs user References: <20040210113417.GD4421@tinyvaio.nome.ca> <20040210170157.GA27421@kroah.com> <20040210171337.GK4421@tinyvaio.nome.ca> <40291A73.7050503@nortelnetworks.com> <20040210192456.GB4814@tinyvaio.nome.ca> In-Reply-To: <20040210192456.GB4814@tinyvaio.nome.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Mike Bell wrote: > Why does it make management easier to have no predictable name for a > device? I believe this is a misconception. Udev uses standard rules by default. If the end-user (or their distro) wants to add additional rules or override these rules, they can do that. > I think the space savings are a pretty good reason alone. Add to that > the fact I think devfs would be a good idea even if it cost MORE > memory... You can mount a devfs on your RO root instead of needing to > mount a tmpfs on /dev and then run udev on that. Don't you have to explicitly mount /dev as type devfs? How is this different than mounting it as tmpfs? > A devfs gives > consistant names for devices in addition to the user's preferred > user-space dictated naming scheme. Udev gives consistant names unless you explicitly override it. > A devfs means even with dynamic > majors/minors, even if you have new hardware in your system, your /dev > at least has the devices it needs. So does udev. The real gain with devfs is that you don't need to have any userspace intervention to get /dev/ populated with a baseline set of device nodes. As long as the udev code is sufficiently robust and compact, I don't have a problem with needing a userspace daemon. Anyone that *really* cares about compactness (embedded people, for instance) is going to use a static /dev tree pruned down to the bare minimum. For everyone else, the overhead of having udev running should be unnoticeable. Chris -- Chris Friesen | MailStop: 043/33/F10 Nortel Networks | work: (613) 765-0557 3500 Carling Avenue | fax: (613) 765-2986 Nepean, ON K2H 8E9 Canada | email: cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com