> Adding a DEV_DETACH/DEV_REATTACH and DEV_GONE would also allow the device
> to react to insertion/removal, indication with the return code if it should
> be deleted completly, considered dormant (entry functions switched to
> error return), or handles the state by itself completly (this would allow
> a network card to keep the interfaces up, and not drop TCP connections). 

Preserving TCP connections would be very cool, but you should _block_ user
processes that attempt to call the device entry points, not return errors.

Either that or give me hard,intr and soft options for these devices. This
exact issue comes up with NFS mounts all the time.

> As I stated in a previous mail, I would prefer a solution where all the
> device drivers are loaded dynamicaly, but thats sometime when the 
> Y2K problem is history :-)) 

I like this. For a while I have wanted to figure out how I could burn a
minimal kernel into the motherboard flash (kill all BIOS's!!) with just
enough drivers to bring up the devices and LKM everything else from what
used to be called my "boot" device.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com