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[Arwed von Merkatz <v.merkatz AT gmx.net>]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 01:25:26PM -0700, Eric Sandall wrote:
> I was just talking to a friend whom would like to start using SMGL
> (currently using Gentoo, but said that he is getting frustrated) and he
> asked me why we have /dev and /devices, so I explained to him that way
> back when we were all Sorcerer, /dev was for applications that still
> required the old device system and /devices was for the new devfs system,
> without breaking the other.  He then mentioned that this method is not
> needed, as `devfsd` will create the old /dev links as appropriate (i.e.
> /dev/hda1 -> /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1) and that we don't
> need separate directories.

devfsd can do this, there is a setting to create compatibility devices.

> What shall we do?  Keep it the same, or move on to using the "new way" and
> remove /devices and /dev, then use `devfsd` to create a devfs system in
> /dev with the appropriate old system links?  I also have heard that
> FreeBSD 5.1 now supports only devfs (no old dev links at all).

I switched to devfs on /dev some months ago, removed /devices and
installed devfsd, i need some (very few) compatibility symlinks in my
devfsd.conf, most stuff works fine (some need a recompile with devfs
on, so they recognize it, or need a configure option). We have some
spells that create devices (e.g. alsa) that need changes, but overall my
experience is pretty positive.

I would vote to go to devfs on /dev + devfsd, the combination of both
devfs and old-style /dev seemed very strange to me from the beginning.


-- 
Arwed v. Merkatz
Grimoire Guru for video
Sourcemage GNU/Linux
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