Re: Migrating to larger numbers
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
Tue, 08 Jun 1999 13:02:23 -0700
Raul Miller wrote:
>
> Albert D. Cahalan <acahalan@cs.uml.edu> wrote:
> > If you have a solution to the above, it can be used to fit everything
> > into 32 bits. I suggest dynamic numbers with devfs, but that need not
> > be the only way to solve the problem.
>
> Dynamic numbers will break NFS guarantees when the server reboots.
> [And breaking NFS was one of the big arguments for not going to 64 bits.]
> Admittedly, not always -- just at the worst possible times.
>
> A proper solution to the generic problem would be to associate a device
> number with a configuration string via user space.
>
Dynamic numbers in general are a bad idea, and despite Richard's claims,
driver writers do get number allocations from me.
-hpa
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