Re: devfs - why not ?

[Alan Cox]

> FAT filesystems aren't guaranteed to be unique. I remember a formatter
> would use the same number everytime. Makes it difficult to
> differentiate.

Yes I can format a UUID the same on all my disks two. I can make 500,000
usb keyboards with the same serial number. Thats broken, we dont care
about broken.

> UUID is definately a useful tool for identifying a device, but in the
> larger scheme of things, it's useful for only a small subset of devices
> and right now, it's only useful if the userspace tool specifically looks
> for it.

UUID identifies _filesystems_ not devices. That makes it more powerful and
part of a much bigger picture where an fs is concerned. Imagine being able to

mount -o find=anywhere uuid:53478583579875 /home

And have your /home looked up in LDAP even