Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Fri, 8 Oct 1999 13:08:15 -0400 | | From | "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <> | | Subject | Re: PUBLIC CHALLENGE: (was RE: devfs again, (was RE: USB device a lloc ation) ) |
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Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 11:27:31 -0400 From: Horst von Brand <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl>
Though luck. Then you must redesign the kernel's guts, and a largeish part of userspace. And recompile everything with another way of handling devices, be it 64 bit dev_t's or some other scheme. BTW, the work for enabling larger dev_t's has been done a long time ago (2.1 something, or even much earlier). AFAIU, glibc is also prepared for a larger dev_t. The big problem is doing it, as it will break _everything_.
Actually, it won't break *everything*; since the user-mode side has already been prepared, it's only an kernel issue, and the number of places it breaks will be large, but not impossible to do. I suspect a number of device drivers won't be affected at all --- all it requires is that the subsystem be written (or rewritten) to use proper macros.
I think the main problem is that it's grunt work that no one has volunteered to go and do it. It's not particularly hard, it's just not particularly uplifting.
- Ted
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