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From: gab10@cd.amdahl.com (Gary A Browning)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Subject: Re: Some ideas on the driver interface (was: Re: Release of drivers etc.)
Message-ID: <0bcN02Do3ab301@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>
Date: 10 Mar 93 17:03:32 GMT
References: <C3MCIF.Iv@sugar.neosoft.com> <1nj0ej$j6s@walt.ee.pdx.edu>
Sender: netnews@ccc.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation
Lines: 38
In article <1nj0ej$j6s@walt.ee.pdx.edu>, rgrimes@acacia (Rodney W.
Grimes) writes:
> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> : It would probably be best to integrate the master file and the
> BSD-ish config
> : file somehow... maybe:
> :
> : controller wd0 at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
> : disk wd0 at wd0 drive 0
> : device wd0 at major 0 minor wd0a 0 wd0b 1 wd0c 2 wd0d 3...
> : disk wd1 at wd1 drive 1
> : device wd1 at major 1 minor wd1a 8 wd1b 9 wd1c 10 wd1d 11...
> :
> : [rest of example deleted]
>
> You really want to duplicate /dev/MAKEDEV in every kernel config file?
> That
> sounds like storing duplicate data.
Shouldn't /dev/MAKEDEV be built by the kernel building process? Maybe by
config. I think you already have duplicated data, just not in a form that
is easy to keep coordinated and up-to-date.
> Are you advocating that config do mknod's in /dev? That would mean every
> time you config a kernel /dev would get rebuilt. Seems to be a waste.
Every time you install a kernel /dev *should* match the config. You can either
rebuild or alter it to match, but it should be match. On some other
implementations of Unix, installation of a new kernel is more complicated than
simply copying the kernel over /386bsd. On UTS, reconfiguring a kernel will
cause /dev/to be rebuild, /etc/fstab to be rebuild along with some other
config dependent files that we don't have in 386BSD. Maybe 'config' should
do more towards maintaining a coherent system.
--
Gary Browning | Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a
gab10@cd.amdahl.com | great idea hits you, and just before you realize
| what is wrong with it.