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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!chsun!bernina!neptune!inf.ethz.ch!weingart From: weingart@inf.ethz.ch (Tobias Weingartner) Subject: Re: Some ideas on the driver interface (New idea!) Message-ID: <1993Mar17.122612.5929@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> Followup-To: poster Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch (Mr News) Nntp-Posting-Host: antares.inf.ethz.ch Reply-To: weingart@inf.ethz.ch Organization: ETH - Switzerland References: <C3MCIF.Iv@sugar.neosoft.com> <1nj0ej$j6s@walt.ee.pdx.edu> <C3p9M9.72J@sugar.neosoft.com> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 12:26:12 GMT Lines: 47 In article <C3p9M9.72J@sugar.neosoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes: [Deleted] > > That would mean every > > time you config a kernel /dev would get rebuilt. > > That's what System V does, for the devices that changed. It sure simplifies > things for naive system admins. I support BSD-style and SysV style systems, > and this is one of the VERY few places System V is way ahead of BSD. How about something like this: cat /etc/fstab: # # First mount real disks # sd2a / 4.2 rw 1 1 sd2d /usr 4.2 rw 1 2 sd3e /home 4.2 rw 1 3 # # The rest are 'pseudo' disks # swap /tmp tmp rw 0 0 dev /dev dev rw 0 0 proc /proc proc rw 0 0 There. Simple no? Instead of making mount(2) take a special file, make it take a string representing the device. The "dev" device would be mounted on /dev, and emulate like it was a real /dev. This way only the devices that were configured into the kernel would even need to show up in "dev". Would be a neat way to dynamically allocate more ptys for example. the "dev" driver/stuff-in-kernel would simply have to simulate like there are more of them all of a sudden. Any comments? --Toby. Tobias Weingartner * PGP2.1 Public Key available at * +41'41'33'25'40 * 'finger weingart@tau.inf.ethz.ch' * %SYSTEM-F-ANARCHISM, the operating system has been overthrown