Messages in this thread |  | | From | "H. Peter Anvin" <> | Subject | Re: Getting past the 16-bit dev_t limitation. | Date | 14 Sep 2000 16:15:58 -0700 |
| |
Followup to: <39C15017.E8B2FC03@mit.edu> By author: Matt Yourst <yourst@mit.edu> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel > > > > >I am working on a project that is going to find the current limit of > >16-bits for device numbers to be a pain. While looking around in the > >linux-kernel archive, ... > > > This is the whole reason Linux 2.4 uses devfs (device filesystem) - > there is no need to use device numbers; you just register the name in > the /dev/whatever namespace and it's done. (The kernel will assign a > unique old-style 16-bit number for compatibility purposes as needed.) > See linux/Documentation/filesystems/devfs/README for the full story. >
This is a nice fable, but that's pretty much all it is. Your user space is going to puke all over you if you try to mess with this.
The right solution, a larger dev_t, *WILL* be implemented in 2.5.
-hpa -- <hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
|  |