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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!news.ossi.com!news.fai.com!amdahl!JUTS!cd.amdahl.com!gab10 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.