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SubjectRe: USB device allocation
On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Nathan Hand wrote:

>Agreed. Getting rid of devfs (the dynamic filesystem) makes devfs (the
>concept of dynamic /dev) more acceptable to more punters, and honestly
>doesn't lose all that much functionality. Modules contact devfsd when
>they need a node. The daemon creates/deletes nodes as needed on a real
>filesystem using the policy laid out via /etc/devfsd.conf.

Why contact a daemon? Have modprobe run 'MAKEDEV' when it's done. MAKEDEV
can already read /proc/devices to automagically figure out many devices to
configure. It's also mentioned in the man-page to have autodelete support
but I imagine that it doesn't right now since it is missing a comprehensive
list of nodes that should exist.

> - The /dev directory is updated in user space, not kernel space.

MAKDEV.

> - You can just turn off the daemon, old behaviour is restored.

Don't run MAKEDEV.

> - Kernel modifications are minimal (changes to init/cleanup_module).

No kernel modification.

> - Major/minors can be assigned dynamically by drivers, avoids GUID.

Maybe, but not currently. If it was exported by kernel in /proc, yes.
Currently only the majors are.

> - Topology rules for USB can be over-engineered totally in user space.

Believe so but fuzzy on the intent behind the above.

> - The policy for naming nodes moves to user space, hpa is happy.

MAKEDEV

> - Persistence of nodes is maintained by the filesystem, tso is happy.

MAKDEV

> - Devfs gets into the kernel, everyone else in the world is happy.

No need. /dev on a ramdisk. Run 'MAKEDEV update' when you boot.

-George Greer


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