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SubjectRe: Migrating to larger numbers

On Tue, Jun 08, 1999 at 02:10:24PM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> Does the kernel automagically load the driver when the device is
> detected, or does the user attempt to access a device, which the kernel
> then has to go out and see if it exists (And if it can load a module
> for it). I've seen it both ways.

I think the simple answer is: the scheme I've outlined doesn't work
with on-demand loading drivers. Richard has indicated that devfs can
manage both cases which is great. [ Although I've never been entirely
sure that demand loading based on accesses to device inodes is the
right level of abstraction -- at a higher level it could be accesses
to "services" of some kind, which can in turn invoke scripts, install
modules etc etc ].

I'm not beating on devfs, I just wanted to tell people writing modular
drivers today that if they run in to problems with major numbers then
there is an workable approach which is both backward and forward
compatible. That's hugely important for anything outside the main
kernel distribution.

Cheers,
Matt

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