Linus & Marcelo,
For SGI's upcoming Linux platform (nicknamed Scalable Node, or SN),
we have some platform specific device drivers. Where should these go?
I see several precedents in the current kernels.
1) Integrate in drivers/*.
Integrate SN drivers into appropriate directories.
Put them directly in char, net, misc, etc., as appropriate.
2) Company (sgi) directory.
There is already an sgi directory, strangely enough.
I *think* this was meant to be a platform directory for the
discontinued SGI 320/540 Visual Workstations. However, maybe
it was intended to be a new precedent of company specific
directories. In this case, we'd probably create a platform
directory under the company directory, so there would likely
be drivers/sgi/sn (some of our SN drivers are here today in
our internal development tree). However, there is no other
precedent for "company" subdirectories under drivers. Apple
didn't do it. IBM didn't do it. HP hasn't done it. Was the
drivers/sgi directory really intended to start a new
precedent of company specific directories under drivers?
3) New platform directory.
Create a platform directory for SN, probably drivers/sn.
There is precedence for this with the drivers/macintosh
and drivers/s390. Also, as noted, the SGI Visual Workstation
drivers are in drivers/sgi. In this case, it might also make
sense to rename drivers/sgi to drivers/visws to indicate
these are drivers for the Visual Workstation platform, and
not generic SGI drivers.
4) New architecture directory.
Another suggestion is to create an architecture directory,
in this case drivers/ia64/{char,net,etc.}/.
I'm happy with whatever you'll accept. To give you something to
either agree with or shoot down, I'll suggest #3. SGI's Scalable
Node product will be different enough, with enough platform specific
drivers, that it justifies it's own subdirectory, and that this
should be called drivers/sn.
John Hesterberg
jh@sgi.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 15 2002 - 21:00:42 EST