Subject: Re: fd dev

From: [email-masked] (Linus Torvalds)
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 92 15:00:39 +0300

Ok, I didn't want to get into this very much, but I'd like to say my 2c
in the discussion (I'll conform to whatever the group decides on, but I
hope I'll like it too...)

- I decidedly dislike the non-flat proposals: I know it looks nice when
you do an 'ls' on the device directory, but it does break a lot of
programs (rootdev, tty etc all goe through the dev-directory to find out
the correct names).  And these programs aren't just small programs
written for linux: the GNU library function ttyname() depends on the
tty's being in a flat directory etc.. 

- I'd like this kind of floppy-structure (I think it's been proposed by
others, but repeating it won't hurt):

	/dev/fdndxxxx

where n is the floppy drive number, d is the density/size of the /drive/
and xxxx is the size of the disk.  The encoding of 'd' might be a
problem: you have to distinguish 5.25" and 3.5" high density drives
(both can read 360/720kB disks), but I think the name could be pretty
easy to remember.  Of course, everybody would link their own names
depending on what kind of drive they have, but this could be the general
"standard" names. 

This could result in names like ('d' is uppercase means 3.5" - just a
thought):

	/dev/fd0H1440	(1.44MB disk in 3.5" drive)
	/dev/fd0d360	(360kB disk in double-denstiry 5.25" drive)
	/dev/fd0h360	(360kB disk in high-denstiry 5.25" drive)
	/dev/fd0H360	(360kB disk in 3.5" drive)

etc.  Pretty easy to remember, and it does give the user a picture of
what kind of drive it's all about, once he knows the general rules. 

- I disagree slightly with the /dev/wdxy structure, where 'x' is a
harddisk number, and 'y' is a alphabetic character for the partition for
two reasons:

	- it seems 'y' = c means the whole disk under BSD.  Very confusing
	  if it just means partition nr 3 under linux.
	- although unlikely, there can be more than 27 partitions/disk.

I'd rather see the current naming remain, with the change that 'hd' is
just renamed as 'wd'.  Nobody has had any major complaints with the
current naming, I think, except for the possibility of confusion with
SCSI etc drives if we just call them 'hd'.  I think it's logical to call
harddisk 0 /dev/wda, and it's partitions /dev/wdaXX..  (with a possible
'r' before the name for raw devices, although linux doesn't support them
as separate devices right now...)

		Linus

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From: Tommy Thorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 92 16:56:02 BST

YES!! Linus suggestion hits the nailhead. I support it 100%.

/Tommy Thorn