> I think what people want from device choice is a reasonable default
> plus a convenient way to override things. The former is handled nicely
> by distributions' udev rules, while the latter is best done by
> providing fixed paths. As an end-user, if I know my favorite joystick
> is on a specific USB port (hence a specific syfs directory), then I
> want to tell neverball "use that one" without setting up nasty udev
> rules or playing major:minor matchup. Yes, that's bypassing the Proper
> Udevian Way of Doing Things, but it's so much easier and Unix-like
> that we really should make it possible (though not by default!).
IMO the right way here would be to have a nice GUI for configuring udev
included with the distro, that'd let you browse the sysfs tree and
point'n'click to create the rule you need.
> Security issues aside (for a moment):
> Is there any reason not to provide real device inodes on sysfs,
> instead of just a textual /sys/foo/dev? And then, maybe udev should
> symlink to those device files under /sys instead of creating its own?
> This would tie the two systems together rather elegantly.
The reason behind this was to force people NOT use sysfs directly when
interfacing to the OS. ;)
Because sysfs wasn't intended to be an API you can rely on, one that's
fixed in stone and cannot be changed for compatibility reasons. I
believe it failed in that respect.