Re: Devfs implementation.

Horst von Brand (vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 09:54:33 -0400


Dylan Griffiths <Dylan_G@bigfoot.com> said:
> I'm not sure why people are resisting Devfs. When I first found out
> about it, I thought it was a great idea. There are some semantics
> issues (ie: cdrom, mouse, video, and other common links need some form
> of persistency and need to be pointing to the correct devices), but on
> the whole it's a good concept.

The problem with devfs, IMVHO, is that it solves the _easy_ half of the
problem. The _hard_ part is permission management (includes persistence,
default permissions, etc). And at least default permission management is
_policy_ and DOES NOT belong into the kernel.

Sure, the current way of creating entries in /dev for 8 IDE disks (or is it
16 now?) and assorted SCSI devices is dumb, but it has the virtue that
permissions (even for now-nonexistent devices that might appear tomorrow)
are handled by exactly the same mechanisms and tools as everywhere else.
Plus it shouldn't be hard to write a script that cleans out what isn't used.

OTOH, it is not exactly a hundred times daily that I add a device. To mess
with everything else just for the sake of making an operation the average
user does _once_ easier is ridiculous.

-- 
Horst von Brand                             vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl
Casilla 9G, Viņa del Mar, Chile                               +56 32 672616

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