> I said weird, because the whole notion of "remove a device, but have
> the kernel pretend some aspects of the device are still there," is
> just plain weird.

Eh.  Perhaps to you. :-)

> If a device is gone, it should be gone completely from the kernel.
> [...]

I'm not sure I agree with this.  This sounds as though you oppose the
notion that it's reasonable to pop out a card, walk down the hall, pop
another card in instead, and (assuming both drops are on the same
network) continue to work, including having all existing connections
survive.

And that means not nuking connections just because they happen to go
out the now-removed interface.

I think this would be a good thing.  Perhaps you do too, but it doesn't
sound like it from what you've said.  (Of course, even if it *is* a
good thing, it may well be more work than it's worth.)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
		     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B