Re: devfs vs. udev

[Ian Kent]

On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Måns Rullgård wrote:

> Andreas Jellinghaus <aj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> >> I noticed this in the help text for devfs in 2.6.0-test6:
> >> 
> >> 	  Note that devfs has been obsoleted by udev,
> >
> > devfs works fine, lists all devices, and obsoletes makedev.
> 
> That's my experience.
> 
> > udev needs patching for several issues, current sysfs only exports
> > many but by far not all devices, and because of that makedev
> > is still needed to create an initial /dev.
> >
> > in short: devfs works fine. udev has quite a way to go.
> > so marking devfs obsolete was done too soon by far. but
> 
> Exactly my point.
> 
> I'd also like an explanation of the rationale behind the switch.
> devfs works and is stable.  Why replace it with an incomplete fragile
> userspace solution?  I recall reading something about the original
> author not updating devfs recently, but I can't see why that requires
> rewriting it from scratch.

Sorry to interrupt.

I have had a look at the code and looked around a bit and I'm left with 
two questions.

1) What are the problems with devfs. I can't seem to find anything 
specific?

2) I believe udev does not support for an increased number of anonymous 
devices for such things as NFS and autofs mounts. I can't see anything in 
the kernel (2.6) to improve this either. Can devfs provide improvements 
for this without to much pain?


-- 

   ,-._|\    Ian Kent
  /      \   Perth, Western Australia
  *_.--._/   E-mail: raven@xxxxxxxxxx
        v    Web: http://themaw.net/

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