Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:52:09 +0200 (CEST) | From | Pjotr Kourzanoff <> | Subject | Re: Larger dev_t |
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On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> ... lots of stuff removed ... > > So in /dev, there are two problems: we are getting painfully close to > major numbers with 8 bits, and we've run out of minors several times. In > fact, a lot of the reason for the dearthness of major numbers is the fact > that we use multiple majors for some stuff that really wants many minors. >
Well, one solution to this on the long term comes quite naturally: make major/minor separation a policy, i.e., as in network/host IP numbers. That is, in addition to 32-bit dev_t there would be a 32-bit devmask_t that when &-ed with dev_t would yield the major. The default, for compatibility reasons will be devmask of 255 (or -1+1<<12). For example, all floppies would fall into 2/8 major (using IP address notation). Obviously, all this is not advantageous on the short term, but in the absence of better ideas, this can give some flexibility when allocating/shifting to new majors/minors...Of course, namespaces approach is even better, but when will all drivers be converted to support them?
Cheers,
Pjotr
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