> In article <linux.kernel.199910071820.OAA25215@pincoya.inf.utfsm.cl>,
> Horst von Brand <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> wrote:
> >"Jakma, Paul" <Paul.Jakma@compaq.com> said:
> >> > > Device names are decided by the driver registering them. [...]
> >
> >> > Names _are_ policy. So now I have to hack the kernel to
> >> > rename the mouse?
> >
> >> oh come on horst.. you know perfectly well the kernel has to set some kind
> >> of policy.. it's either major/minor's or names. no way round it. Try be
> >> constructive.
> >
> >/dev is in the _filesystem_, and can be kept there. Has been there for
> >ages, in fact. What is in there smells like files, tastes like files, and
> >behaves like files: ls(1), mv(1), rm(1), chmod(1), chown(1) all work as
> >they always do with files. This is an important part of the Unix way.
> >
> >What devfs proposes is to fake all this functionality, kludgeing
> >permissions into tarfiles that have to be created when shutting down and
> >reread when booting.
>
> No it doesn't.
>
> devfs simply provides a way for the kernel to tell userland what
> devices it has, using the de facto standard naming conventions
> that everybody uses.
Not everyone uses that, in fact, Solaris appears to use an
intereting combination, as in, it creates /devices, which is a part of
the real / partition, by reading data out of the kernel. It then
creates /dev as symlinks to the REAL FILES in /devices.
Stephen
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