> > > You mean /dev/ide/bus#/cd/device# as compared to /dev/ide/cd/location#
> > > I assume?
> >
> > Perhaps even /dev/ide/bus0/master (but, as I said, that may be too
> > much purism - even Solaris doesn't quite go that far)
>
> But what advantages would be derived from this purism (in the default,
> kernel-supplied virtual FS)? If there was some use to this structure,
> why not have devfsd create it from the existing structure that the
> devfs patch provides?
The advantage would be that you're talking about a particular
device at a particular place. /dev/ide/cd/device1 doesn't tell you what
IDE bus you're talking to (At least, not obviously, perhaps the 1 is
signifigant).
The only problem w/ this scheme is that I see alot of
/dev/*/bus#/.. happening, where /dev/ide#/master might suffice. To
then also have something like /dev/ide/cd/device# may also be of some
use, but that seems more specific. That, and as an administrator or
someone who is going to be sticking a CD in a PC, chances are I'm going
to know what CD drive is connected to what IDE bus. Heh, I'll probably
also have a pretty good idea that a particular device is a CD and not
something else.
Having something like /dev/ide/cd could be useful. Just
that perhaps they should be symlinks to /dev/ide#/*. To some extent the
same could work out for say scsi disks. /dev/scsi#/dev0, or just
/dev/scsi#/0. Now, there is the problem of partitions on a disk, I'm
not sure how those should be addressed, but in general I do see a use
for the location defining the directory structure, instead of the type
of device, and then only finding out where it is when you get to the
actual name of the device.
This is all to some extent just nit-picking. I do agree with
the virtual /dev, because I want to be able to have devices be attached
and detached w/o having to create/delete device nodes manually, or
having to have alot of devices under /dev where only some are used. I
also in general like the naming scheme devfs uses, I can see advantages
both ways, and I think a scheme similar to Solaris may work, where
/devices has a directory structure related to the Physical location of
device, and /dev has it by type of device.
Stephen
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