Re: devlinks: an alternative to devfs

Andrea Arcangeli (arcangeli@mbox.queen.it)
Thu, 8 Jan 1998 15:51:53 +0100 (CET)


On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote:

>>Devlinks solve the limitation of 8-bit minor numbers almost forever
>>(there is some huge limit on the length of a filename but I doubt that
>>will ever be a problem).
>
>ok. but you mix several topics (devfs has nothing to do with 8 bit minor
>numbers).

Excuse my ignorance (I know that sure I am missing something), but why
don' t change in /usr/src/linux/include/linux/kdev_t.h from:

typedef unsigned short kdev_t;

to:

typedef unsigned int kdev_t;

and we will have magically space for 16 bit minor and major numbers. Then
we need to change MINORBITS to 16 and all others 8 to 16...

Andrea[s] Arcangeli