Re: [RFC] change in /proc/devices

[david parsons]

In article <[e-mail]>,
Alexander Viro  <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>
>On 22 Jan 2000, david parsons wrote:
>
>> In article <[e-mail]>,
>> Alexander Viro  <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> >(I _really_ don't see the point in separate names for IDE interfaces here,
>> 
>>     Because, unlike scsi, ide majors are randomly scattered all over g-d's
>>     creation.   If you've got some (puke) userland script faking devfs
>>     (like recent MAKEDEV's) it will probably care about the difference
>>     between ide0, ide1, ide2, and so on.
>
>Dave, meet /dev/sdq. /dev/sdq, meet Dave. Dave, pay attention to /dev/sdq
>major...

    My name's not Dave.

    But as for /dev/sdq...

root@downbelow# ls -l /dev/sdq
ls: /dev/sdq: No such file or directory
root@downbelow# ls -l /dev/sdq*
ls: /dev/sdq*: No such file or directory
root@downbelow# 

    I presume that /dev/sdq will be living on Yet Another major to get
    around the bizarre type-of-device numbering of scsi devices?  I'll
    just start shuddering now and avoid the rush.

>> >This change is needed if we want to avoid (a) races and (b) major suckage
>> >with exporting spinlocks, etc.
>> 
>>     Why?
>
>One word: rmmod.

   So the output of /proc/devices will be out of date if an rmmod is done
   just after the code trawls over the registry entry for the offending
   device.   Is this important?

>> >If somebody wants to protest - please, do
>> >it _now_.
>> 
>>     Consider this a most vigorous protest.

>Umm... Will /proc/drivers/block/<driver>/ranges make you happy? I.e.
>$ cat /proc/drivers/block/ide/ranges
>0300(80)
>1600(80)
>2100(80)
>2200(80)
>$ cat /proc/drivers/block/ide/hdb/range
>0340(40)

    No.  That's a pretty awful scheme there.

                  ____
    david parsons \bi/ so now I need to make a zillion system calls to figure
                   \/     out which major is affiliated with which hdx device?