Hi James
>>software he also ends up deleting the alias for the media changer. The
>>proper way of doing this would be to add and remove aliases via
>>"update_drv -a/-d -i", but there is existing practice and third party
>>products that say "run 'rem_drv sgen'". Making a driver cp-clonable
>>could provide a workaround that accommodates existing practice
>
> yikes.
>
> I hope that's never used as anything other than as a work-around. I
> can see this getting confusing over time. Especially if 'cp' is
> really what's used -- after patching the system, those cp-based clones
> will be using old slightly-different code, but the originals will be
> using new code. The conflicts could be spectacular.
>
> There are instances of drivers using name-based information to ensure
> that there's only one instance of a control node or user-space daemon
> or the like.
>
> Could the feature perhaps need a warning label? ("For driver
> developers only; administrators, please don't try this at home.")
I said upfront that this use case was weak: I would not propose this
for anything but a last-resort work-around. There are multiple pages
of google hits on "rem_drv sgen", which is an inappropriate command for
a multi-application driver like sgen - so the need for a work-around
could arise. Unfortunately, there are open issues with update_drv to
consider too.
http://monaco.sfbay.sun.com/detail.jsf?cr=4854243,6198348,6464765,6612207,6674099
-Chris
