Re: Why do we need /dev

[Greg KH <greg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 01:56:50PM +0530, Jinesh K J wrote:
> On 10/10/06, Greg KH <greg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 12:07:49PM +0530, Jinesh K J wrote:
> >
> >> Also, the concepts of major and minor numbers - don't anyone think
> >> that they should not be a concern for a device driver programmer at
> >> all. I think they are outdated or unnecessary.
> >
> >They aren't a concern anymore.  Why do you think they are?
> 
> int register_chrdev_region(dev_t from, unsigned count, const char *name)
> 
> I really don't want to see a 'dev_t' up there (though I know that it
> can be ignored). Those numbers should be dealt within the kernel. Why
> would anyone wanna set those numbers manually?

Backwards compatibility with 15 years of Linux systems?

For new devices, just use dynamic major/minor if you want, they will
work just fine.

And yeah, the chrdev interface is a bit "funky", it should be cleaned up
one day...

thanks,

greg k-h

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