From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262285AbTJGMid (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 08:38:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262306AbTJGMid (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 08:38:33 -0400 Received: from 213-187-164-3.dd.nextgentel.com ([213.187.164.3]:64009 "EHLO ford.pronto.tv") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262285AbTJGMic (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 08:38:32 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: devfs vs. udev From: mru@users.sourceforge.net (=?iso-8859-1?q?M=E5ns_Rullg=E5rd?=) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:38:27 +0200 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I noticed this in the help text for devfs in 2.6.0-test6: Note that devfs has been obsoleted by udev, . It has been stripped down to a bare minimum and is only provided for legacy installations that use its naming scheme which is unfortunately different from the names normal Linux installations use. Now, this puzzles me, for a few of reasons. Firstly, not long ago, devfs was spoken of as the way to go, and all drivers were rewritten to support it. Why this sudden change? Secondly, that link only leads me to a package describing itself as an experimental proof-of-concept thing, not to be used for anything serious. How can something that incomplete obsolete a working system like devfs? Thirdly, udev appears to respond to hotplug events only. How is it supposed to handle device files not corresponding to any physical device? Finally, I quite liked the idea of a virtual filesystem for /dev. It reduced the clutter quite a bit. As for the naming scheme, it could easily be changed. -- Måns Rullgård mru@users.sf.net