*BSD News Article 13136


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rpi!psinntp!psinntp!uuneo!sugar!peter
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Device & Kernel Configuration
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 13:47:59 GMT
Message-ID: <C46x01.3Bx@sugar.neosoft.com>
References: <C45Mwu.n0t@BitBlocks.com>
Lines: 38

In article <C45Mwu.n0t@BitBlocks.com> bvs@BitBlocks.com (Bakul Shah) writes:
> 6. After the kernel is up and running, a user process queries the
>    kernel and updates the /dev directory.

I like everything up to here, but I don't think that the system should
touch anything in /dev until we have more experience with special dev
files. The major/minor pairs can be stored in the config file and you can
at least check that they're consistent, and create missing inodes, but
don't blow away (say) the symlink set up from /dev/tape to /dev/rst0.

> - I like this scheme because it does everything I want (:-)
>   without introducing a lot of complexity.

How do you sync the config table with the kernel you've got loaded?

> - Editing the config table by hand is a lot easier than messing
>   with /sys/i386/conf/FOOBAR and /sys/i386/i386/conf.c.

It's exactly like messing with /sys/i386/conf/FOOBAR.

> - You can disable a buggy device driver.  Makes it easy to test
>   new drivers.

That's a big benefit.

> - If you need help in configuring or chasing some bug, you can
>   describe the configuration fairly succintly to others who can
>   then quickly diagnose configuration related problems.

Good one.

I'm sending both this article and the one describing /dev files using
strings for the major device info to the bsd-config mailing list.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tänään?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tämä ateria elää vielä.