On Sunday 08 July 2001 15:55, Jim Conner wrote:
> I've heard good and bad with devfs. I
> personally don't want to use it since some hardware/software want's to use
> the standard /dev/* and you have to create soft links to get some stuff to
> work. It's still too new but will be nice once it is fully designed and
> implemented and software supports it fully.
One of the bugbears with devfs is the Developer's dislike of symlinks. This
coupled with the fact that devfs only creates /dev nodes, based on what is
'really there', means that the links we've all come to love and admire like
/dev/modem and /dev/mouse, dissapear on each reboot.
There are, of course, ways round it , extracting a /dev tarball for instance
on each boot (as suggested in the man pages). Or, using one of the hopelessly
documented DEV verbs. (Anyone suggests I use info, I'll strangle them)
But, that's all it is, way's round the problem. When you multiply that
problem by all the other sexy symlinks you (might) use eg /dev/cdrom, it
becomes less painful when you stop banging your head against the wall. Not
all applications will accept hard /dev/nodes. Some are hard wired to read
only from /dev/cdrom.
I tried devfs for approx 2 months. I liked and appreciated it very much, the
lean clean /dev/ folder. But the truly awful non-documentation, and the
constant wrestling, made me switch back. One thing absolutely for certain
though, the /dev file system has it's use by date showing prominently, and
/devfs WILL be the way it's done, real soon now, so we'll all have to
accomodate it.
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