Re: udating device drivers

[Edward Betts <edward@hairnet.demon.co.uk>]

On Thu, 14 Jan, 1999, Bruce Sass wrote:
> What is needed is an `available drivers' management program (admp) that is
> implemented independently from the installation procedure, and to the
> extent possible, the system in general.  It should be able to handle
> multiple mixed sources of driver modules (floppy, cd, mountable,...) 
> and result in /lib/modules/* containing only those drivers that have
> specifically been selected to be on the system, or are expected
> to be hanging around.  Then modconf and buddies can take over.

Sounds a great idea, we can put it with dtm and apt

> I'd get started on it right away, but...
> I don't have a clue what O_EXCL refers to yet,

OPEN(2)             Linux Programmer's Manual             OPEN(2)

NAME
       open, creat - open and possibly create a file or device

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/stat.h>
       #include <fcntl.h>

       int open(const char *pathname, int flags);
       int open(const char *pathname, int flags, mode_t mode);
       int creat(const char *pathname, mode_t mode);

DESCRIPTION
       open  attempts to open a file and return a file descriptor
       (a small, non-negative integer for  use  in  read,  write,
       etc.)

       flags is one of O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY or O_RDWR which request
       opening the  file  read-only,  write-only  or  read/write,
       respectively.

       flags  may  also  be  bitwise-or'd with one or more of the
       following:

       O_CREAT If the file does not exist it will be created.

       O_EXCL  When used with O_CREAT, if the file already exists
               it  is an error and the open will fail.  

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