Re: Status of Debian Policy

["James R. Van Zandt" <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>]

Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de> writes:


>TOPIC 2: Package priorities and dependencies
>--------------------------------------------
...
>
>     Packages may not depend on packages with lower priority values. 
>     If this should happen, one of the priority values will have to
>     be adopted.
         ^^^^^^^  I think this should be "adjusted"

>TOPIC 4: policy for devices
>---------------------------
...
>
>  No package may include device files in the package file tree.
>
>  If a package needs any special device files that are not included
>  in the base system, it has to call makedev in the postinst script,
>  after asking the user for permission to do so.
>
>  No package should remove any device files in the postrm or any
>  other script. This is left to the system administrator.

I have written and am about to package a modular device driver for a
speech synthesizer.  makedev does not know about this device.  Also,
the major device number is assigned dynamically, so the special device
file can only be created after the module is installed.  (Then, the
major device number can be learned from /proc/devices.)  In this case,
I think removing the device file also makes sense.  (Otherwise it must
be removed and recreated the next time the module is installed, unless
the device number happens to be the same.)  

I suggest adding something like this to your second paragraph:

    Special device files for devices with dynamically assigned major
    device numbers should be created by a script that runs after the
    module is installed.  Those special device files should also be
    removed when the module is removed.  For example, see depmod(1) for
    the "post-install" and "post-remove" configuration commands for
    /etc/conf.modules.

I have been programming for quite a while, but kernel modules are new
to me.  If there is a better way to handle this case, I am open to
suggestions.

                               - Jim Van Zandt


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