Re: Crazy Idea: Replacing /dev using sysfs over time

[linux-os (Dick Johnson)]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Shawn Starr wrote:

> I wonder if in the future, we can just eliminate /dev altogether (or map it
> via sysfs until older apps move away from /dev). It just seems we could
> represent major,minor in a sysfs node:
>
>        /sys/class/block/
>        `-- sda
>            |-- sda1
>                    | - major
>                    | - minor
>                    | - raw
>            |-- sda2
>                    | - major
>                    | - minor
>                    | - raw
>            `-- sda3
>
> and so forth, or under a different branch elsewhere.
>
> Does it make sense? Logical? Illogical? Do we really need /dev other than for
> historical/legacy purposes?
>
> Shawn.

Already been done. We have "devfs" in the kernel. FYI, you
don't need "/dev". The devices-files are just a way of associating
a major/minor number with a file-descriptor. It's convenient and
neat to have them all at a known location, just like having
configuration files in "/etc".

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13 on an i686 machine (5589.55 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.

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