But usbdevfs is slightly different.... if I want shared memory, I can't
modularize it. I can modularize usb. Also, I don't actually have to
mount /var/shm to make my tools or X work right.
And yes, I could have it mounted by my initscripts. The problem is this:
Suppose I mount it in my initscripts. Then I _must_ either (a) compile
usbcore into my kernel, or (b) always load usbcore via any one of a number
of methods (alias usbdevfs usbcore, explicitly insmod usbcore, etc).
Thus, this defeats the entire purpose of making the core a module -- I
can't load and unload it easily. At least, not without manually umounting
usbdevfs, which will make tools and X unhappy and violate Tom's position
that usbdevfs will always be mounted (see his previous posting).
I think we should either (a) not make usbcore buildable as a module, or
(b) separate usbdevfs from the rest of the core functionality.
It just strikes me that it should be possible to separate a good portion
of usbdevfs from the rest of the core. Maybe it's just me, but a quick
scan of the code shows that much of the interface is the core functions
calling usbdevfs functions to notify it of connects/disconnects and places
where usbdevfs retrieves information from devices (which, AFAIK, still is
a problem as a race condition with other drivers -- but that's another
issue entirely).
If we separate these two bits of functionality, then we wind up with a
system where we can:
(o) always have usbdevfs compiled into the kernel, and thus always
available for tools and X
(o) allows us the option of modularizing other pieces of code freely
(o) allows us to insmod/rmmod usbcore easily without breaking tools/X
Basically, it's that 3rd point which is the real key to me: I can't
really use usbcore as a module with the current system. Sure, I can
compile it that way, but I basically have to leave it loaded into memory
all the time because I don't want to make the tools or X (okay, I'm
speaking in the future now) upset because /proc/bus/usb is empty.
Matt Dharm
On Tue, 2 May 2000, Thomas Sailer wrote:
> Matthew Dharm wrote:
>
> > Hrm... if we (the USB Devel group) are going to say this, then perhaps we
> > should look at some type of self-mounting system for usbdevfs, ala the way
> > devfs mounts itself at boot time.
>
> put
> none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs
> defaults 0 0
> into /etc/fstab, and the distribution boot scripts will do it
> automagically.
> usbdevfs is nowhere different from say shmfs
>
> Tom
>
--
Matthew Dharm Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior Engineer, QCP Inc. Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was a new hope.
-- Dust Puppy
User Friendly, 12/25/1998
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