device nodes with udev?

[Miles Bader <miles.bader@necel.com>]

I usually compile my own kernels (using make-kpkg), but recently I
decided to try a standard debian package of 2.6.14, since it was up
before I got around to it.  [This is from unstable]

It seems to work OK, but the weird thing is that I got a bunch of random
useless device nodes in /dev as a result, and I'm not entirely sure
where they're coming from.

The main offender is ptys -- I use udev for my devices, and normally
/dev/pts gets used for ptys, but with the new kernel there were suddenly
about 10 zillion old-style pty-related device nodes -- /dev/[pt]ty[a-z][0-9]
-- there are also a bunch of other random devices I don't want like
/dev/ram[0-9].

Despite the presence of these old-style pty nodes, the system still seems to
be using the new /dev/pts driver for actually making ptys (e.g., if I type
"tty" in an emacs shell, it says "/dev/pts/1"), so they seem to be just some
left over cruft.

Where exactly are these created?  Given that I'm using udev, I'm surprised
that which kernel I have installed even makes a difference -- shouldn't
device creation just be left up to udev?  Is there a setting I should be
setting but am not?

   i linux-image-2.6.14-1-686    2.6.14-2  
   i udev                        0.072-2   

Thanks,

-Miles
-- 
"Suppose He doesn't give a shit?  Suppose there is a God but He
just doesn't give a shit?"  [George Carlin]