> /kern/r?rootdev aren't really that useful.  they don't work if the
> root device node isn't in the (vnode?) cache.

Odd.  I never noticed that.  I'll have to look at it and see if I can
fix it.

> ie, you can't use it for "mount /kern/rootdev /" because the kernel
> doesn't know what rootdev is (from the /dev device POV) until the
> real device node is accessed..

But you don't need to know *which* real device node that is.

"ls -l /dev > /dev/null" is all it takes, at least in a small test I
just did.  Then you can "mount /kern/rootdev /" just fine, without
needing to know which of the devices in /dev it actually is.  (You can
tell, of course, by comparing the major/minor numbers for /kern/rootdev
to the stuff in /dev, but that's a pain.)

Of course, this doesn't help the case where your rootdev isn't present
in /dev (whether because you booted from somewhere unusual or because
/dev is not fully populated), which is when you need it most.  I'll
definitely have to look at fixing it.

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