Re: [TUHS] Device special files

Ian Zimmerman <itz(a)very.loosely.org> wrote: |On 2018-02-07 19:36, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: |> Going from ``hardware only changes when the DEC Field engineer is |> here'' to ``my toaster has USB'' has put serious strain on the rather |> crude implementation of the ``devices as files'' concept | |Well, if you don't try to connect your toaster to the computer, you |don't have this problem :-) A killer argument. |I had a self-maintained Linux system (ie. no distribution) until about |2000. I had no problem understanding what the two dozen /dev/ entries |were for. I even wrote a better (table driven) makedev implementation |and I tried to get it into Debian, but by that time rumors of devfs were |already on the way so it wasn't worth a transition to them. | |The real problem with static /dev is on the development side IMO - |managing the namespace of device names and major/minor numbers. If you have grown up with this and are experienced, or have a small system, or have a system with good documentation, then you might be right. (You are definitely right with the latter, say.) I was lost in a jungle of things i did not understand including lots of frightening but anyway apparantly dead Z(ombie) processes (SuSE debug distribution offered for very few money and bought as side-effect on 1999-01-11). And then it is indeed true that having a device file does not mean there is actually a driver behind it. No magic springs-into-existence, if i recall correctly. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)