#define AUTHOR "weingart@austin.BrandonU.CA (Tobias Weingartner)"

/*
 * In message <9412201747.AA10499@snark.imsi.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes:
 * > 
 * > Greg A. Woods says:
 * > > But multiple /dev/tty's for for the same port is an icky kludge, and it
 * > > hides valuable information in the kernel.  (I.e. it's non-unix-like ;-)
 * > 
 * 
 * To jump on the bandwagon, I think locking should be done in the kernel,
 * unless you can think of a way to lock things in userland, and not have to
 * worry about lockfiles, etc...
 * 
 * One thing I do worry about, is the haphazard way that devices are named
 * in the /dev directory.  Can we clean this up some?  Please?
 * 
 * SVR4 (evil word on these lists?) has started something which would be an
 * ok place to look, and modify.  Personally, I don't like c1d2s3p5 (or
 * whatever it is) for every disk partition.  However, something like:
 * 

To those of us who have been born and raised on BSD UNIX from day 1,
/dev/{device}/{number}/{device-files} is pretty evil-looking.  I mean,
from my own point of view, this was one of the things that was
horrid about SVRx (not to mention that one could, until recently, back-
space over one's prompt, but that's another story...).

It's very intuitive once you read up on the basics (and if one can't
be bothered to read up on basics, one can go use NT or something).
I mean, look:

	/dev/r.* devices are typically raw devices (/dev/rd[0-9][a-h]
		notwithstanding)
	/dev/rmt.* devices are raw magtapes, less the 'r' are block magtapes
	/dev/rXd[0-9]+[a-h] devices are raw disks, less the 'r' are block disks
		X=s: scsi disk; anything else is platform/mfr. specific.
	/dev/rsr* are CD-ROM drives (I don't know of a non-SCSI CDROM).
	/dev/pty[p-w][0-9a-f] are pseudo-tty masters 
	/dev/tty[p-w][0-9a-f] are pseudo-tty slaves (one per master)
	/dev/console, /dev/null, /dev/zero are obvious.

One of the things I absolutely abhor about Solaris/SVR4 is that they have
a /devices directory, and everything in /dev is symlinked to
/devices/some/long/horrid/name, and then to make it BSD compatible
(what a joke), they link some stuff in /dev to some other stuff in /dev.
It's pretty gross.

BSD != SVR4.

 * /dev/disk/1/raw:0
 * /dev/disk/1/block:0

Uck.  See above.

 * IE:
 * /dev/{device}/{number}/{device-files}
 * 
 * Also, another nit to pick, why are the pseudo terminals listed in such
 * a totaly non-intuitive fashion.  Why not just:
 * 

I thought there was one master pty per slave?

 * /dev/pty/master
 * /dev/pty/000
 * /dev/pty/001
 * ...
 * /dev/pty/NNN
 * 
 * This will make certain programs (like finger/ps) hate me, but why not
 * change them.  Make NetBSD a friendlier place to live in, without
 * sacrificing any functionality...

NetBSD is pretty friendly, from my point of view.  BSD always has been.

Does anyone else out there /despise/always/typing/long/filenames/for/devices?
/dev/ttyp0 is fine for me...

 * 
 * Anybody wanna comment on this?
 * 
 * --Toby.
 * *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
 * | Tobias Weingartner | Email: weingart@BrandonU.Ca | Need a Unix sys-admin?  |
 * | Box 27, Beulah, MB |-----------------------------| Send E-Mail for resume, |
 * | R0M 0B0, Canada    | Unix Guru, Admin, Sys-Prgmr | and other details...    |
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 */

#undef AUTHOR	/* "weingart@austin.BrandonU.CA (Tobias Weingartner)" */



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