On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 11:15:12AM -0800, Matt Thomas wrote:
> >: the only completely backward-compatible way to increase the number
> >: of partitions is to create a new device major number for each current
> >: device major that uses part of its minor as a partition.
> >
> >There comes a point where supposition leads into ludicrous situations, and
> >this is one of them.  If the extra partition bits are placed sufficiently
> >high in the minor number to provide a reasonably large number of units (say,
> >16384 drives?), someone will have had to create nodes with ridiculously
> >large unit numbers to conflict with them.
> 
> Not only that, 1.6GB of memory would be needed for the cd_devs array.  That's
> not probable.

ok, you got me, it's only a problem in principle.  but I still think
we should work on a real solution rather than make do with workarounds.

-Chuck