> > > RJ> The Unix-like kernel knows only major/minor device numbers, not names.
> > > Which POSIX standard says how unix-like kernel acts inside ???
> >
> > I'm beginning to wonder why we're still fumbling around with the
> > major/minor concept. Is there any compelling reason for it other than
> > "thats the way we've always done it since 1970's, and 640k is enough ram
> > for anyone"?
>
> You need a permanent on disk device key for the system. That basically means
> either a name or number in the inode. A number is obviously somewhat easier.
>
> major/minor is a very clean and neat idea - we might want 32bits of it sure
Welp folks, there you have it. Okay, so what work needs to be done
to change over to 32bits for major/minor? Is that going to be enough? Is
there a way to get information from a driver via it's major/minor? Perhaps
a user-space proggie that could scan through the major/minor's for the scsi
devices and get information about each device and use that information to
either create links to the broken /dev/sd*, or to just out-right create the
devices to begin with?
What about hot-swap w/ scsi devices? If you add in a disk between
two other disks, what's going to happen? Can we have a list of major/minor's
currently in the system and a way to get information about them, and perhaps
a way to be notified (in userspace) when a new device is added or removed?
Stephen
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