Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-23,: Re: Migrating to larger numbers

# Re: Migrating to larger numbers

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Wed, 9 Jun 1999 01:25:42 -0400 (EDT)

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Richard Gooch writes:
> Raul Miller writes:
>> Albert D. Cahalan <acahalan@cs.uml.edu> wrote:

>>> If you have a solution to the above, it can be used to fit everything
>>> into 32 bits. I suggest dynamic numbers with devfs, but that need not
>>> be the only way to solve the problem.
>>
>> Dynamic numbers will break NFS guarantees when the server reboots.

Huh? You don't even need to serve device files over the network.
The /dev filesystem exists only in client memory.

If you want to serve a real /dev for older clients, you still have ext2.

>> A proper solution to the generic problem would be to associate a device
>> number with a configuration string via user space.

That won't help you at boot. Hacks like initrd might work, but they
also make Linux more complicated.

> Devfs doesn't mean dynamic device numbers.

Not necessarily, but it can support them better than the current system can.
Trying to do dynamic device numbers and/or names with the current system
is a bad joke.

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