Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:41:42 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: [RFC] New Driver Model for 2.5 |
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On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Alan Cox wrote: > > I don't think it is a big problem. We can add virtual nodes. They way I > see it we either > a) put in grungy subsystem hacks > b) register virtual device nodes for subsystems when needed > > b feels cleaner
I agree. I would personally see us using _more_ "virtual device node" things already: right now we have things like SuperIO chips that contain both a serial line and a parallel port (and...), and some drivers do really ugly things with them - keep them as one "struct pci_dev", and then have two drivers sharing the device.
It would be much cleaner to have _one_ driver for such SuperIO chips (a "multinode" driver), which just creates two virtual pci_dev structures, and lets the regular serial driver handle the "virtual serial device" etc.
That has the advantage of: - not needing special hacks in various serial/parallel drivers - the devices show up naturally and logically in whatever user mode "device m nager" tree
So the device nodes do not have to match the physical tree. The physical device tree only sets up the initial physical scanning, and obviously limits _reality_ ;)
Linus
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