Subject: device names

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1992 08:55:15 EDT

>It obviously isn't necessary to have different device names since DOS
>deals with this perfectly well and if DOS can do it we can certainly get
                                                     --
>Linux to do it. Of course, someone will have to enlighten us as to how
>DOS does it?

This person called "we" is sure gonna being doing heaps for linux :)

I think someone has already raised the following points, but I think I
would like to emphisize them more.  Has someone actually taken up the
task of working on smarter drivers (in particular the floppy).  It
doesn't seem like a very exciting task: the current ones do an
adequate job.  Perhaps the standard we need the soonest is one that
copes with the present, and actively being worked on, situation.
Maybe we could agree to get this out of the way first.

Sounds like we need a standard for what linux can do now (or soon),
and a standard for what we want it to do in the longer term future.
Maybe we should have a "prefered directions standard", ie a statement
of where we'd like to be in a ideal situation.

I've kind of lost track of the devices discussion, anyone got a summary
of the most promising alternatives?

---

From: [email-masked] (Werner Almesberger)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 01:45:48 +0000

[email-masked] (Bruce Varney) writes:
> But you wouldn't need an autodetection mechanism for all four formats.
> The major and minor numbers of the device would tell it what formats to try.

That's exactly my point ;-)

> Why do you want to base a driver, located in the kernel on device names
> instead of numbers???

I guess that might be difficult ;-) No, seriously, I probably didn't
make that clear enough: /dev/fd0.3 etc. should of course have different
minor/major numbers too.

What I'm proposing is simply a compromise between a complex detection
mechanism a la DOS and distinct devices for each supported format.

Maybe we should move this discussion to comp.os.linux, because it's more
about driver design than about standards.

- Werner

-- 
   _________________________________________________________________________
  / Werner Almesberger, ETH Zuerich, CH      [email-masked] /
 / IFW A44  Tel. +41 1 254 7213                 [email-masked] /
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