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Re: udev device naming policy concerns



On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 01:38:41AM +0100, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> On Mar 05, Tore Anderson <tore@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> As I'm not really interested in arguing over this, I will reply only to
> a few of the comments.
> 
> >  First of all, devfs is considered obsolete by the upstream kernel
> > maintainers.
> devfs is considered obsolete because nobody was willing to fix its
> brokeness. I do not remember anybody declaring anything about the naming
> style.

According to Greg K-H devfs naming violates LSB... Actually it seems to
violate FHS prior to 2.3, which is what is specified to be used by LSB
1.3/1.9.6. Since Debian attempts to adhere to the FHS/LSB it probably
should follow those guidelines ;). Even using devfs with compat layer
is a violation of FHS 2.2 from what I can tell... Once FHS 2.3 is
accepted by the LSB Debian can rename the devices as they wish.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev_vs_devfs

Note: That is the on the same site you download the source off of. ;)

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FHS 2.2

6.1.3 /dev : Devices and special files

All devices and special files in /dev should adhere to the Linux Allocated
Devices document, which is available with the Linux kernel source. It is
maintained by H. Peter Anvin <address omitted>. 

Symbolic links in /dev should not be distributed with Linux systems except
as provided in the Linux Allocated Devices document. 

BEGIN RATIONALE

The requirement not to make symlinks promiscuously is made because local
setups will often differ from that on the distributor's development
machine. Also, if a distribution install script configures the symbolic
links at install time, these symlinks will often not get updated if local
changes are made in hardware. When used responsibly at a local level,
however, they can be put to good use. 
 
END RATIONALE

---

FHS 2.3

/dev : Devices and special files

The following devices must exist under /dev. 

/dev/null

All data written to this device is discarded. A read from this device will
return an EOF condition.

/dev/zero

This device is a source of zeroed out data. All data written to this
device is discarded. A read from this device will return as many bytes
containing the value zero as was requested.

/dev/tty

This device is a synonym for the controlling terminal of a process. Once
this device is opened, all reads and writes will behave as if the actual
controlling terminal device had been opened.

Rationale

Previous versions of the FHS had stricter requirements for /dev. Other
devices may also exist in /dev. Device names may exist as symbolic links
to other device nodes located in /dev or subdirectories of /dev. There
is no requirement concerning major/minor number values.

---

LSB 1.3

Chapter 20. File System Hierarchy

An LSB conforming implementation must adhere to the FHS 2.2.

---

LSB 1.95

Chapter 4. File System Hierarchy

An LSB conforming implementation shall adhere to the FHS 2.2.

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