1. At boot time, before device loading, kernel obtains
combined list of known hardware from BIOS by whatever
means available. Not just ISAPNP, but PCI, SBUS,
VME - whatever is available to the platform.
2. Device drivers have access to the list via an api
during loading, and can register ownership of devices,
and/or interest in receiving notifications of device
events. Both compiled-in and modular drivers are
supported.
3. Upon receipt of device events (hot swapped PCMCIA
cards, USB, etc.), kernel notifies interested device
drivers, and possibly a user-space daemon listening
to a /dev/something.
I can't think of a simpler, platform-inclusive way of
doing this. At no time does the kernel need to have
a master list of device IDs. Would this require recoding
of drivers? No, unless they want to take advantage
of it. Nothing broken, just a new CONFIG item.
Dave
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