> Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 10:42:57 -0500 (EST)
> From: der Mouse <mouse@Holo.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> >> I suggested sharing of major/minor numbers a long time ago.  [...]
> 
> > Another way (which I prefer) is to eliminate MAKEDEV and let the
> > kernel make the device nodes for us, possibly in a special filesystem
> > for that purpose, automatically mounted on /dev/.
> 
> I really really dislike this.
> 
> Why?  Because it means the user-level device names are wired into the
> kernel.  Because it means I can't  [ ln, chmod, chgrp, ...]
> 
> Or if devfs does support the above, it means the results won't survive
> the next reboot.

It is easy enough to make such a thing support changes; it could
work something like an automatically initialized ramdisk.

Making the changes survive reboot is harder, but if one is willing
to be open minded, then there are reasonably easy ways to do it.
(i.e. a script to change things from the kernel defaults)

The idea of making the kernel responsible for making its own device
nodes has some elgance (the kernel knows the right information).
However, this would represent a significant divergence from the old
way of doing things, which many people dislike intensely...

Gordon