Re: udev: what does it used for in Debian?

[Ivan Shmakov <ivan@gray.siamics.net>]

>>>>> Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> writes:
>>>>> On Oct 24, Ivan Shmakov <ivan@gray.siamics.net> wrote:

 >> It doesn't seem like a good reason for the aforementioned
 >> dependency, does it?

 > There are many other reasons, you can find them in /lib/udev/.

	ACK, thanks.

 >> And what the initramfs-tools package has to do with consistent
 >> devices' filenames?

 > udev is needed to automatically load all the modules you need, for a
 > start.

	So, the kernel won't try to autoload a module when the
	corresponding device gets accessed?

	It was my understanding that, e. g., should a 10, 1 character
	device (/dev/psaux) be accessed, the kernel will spawn
	modprobe(8) against char-major-10-1, which is then resolved to
	‘psmouse’ thanks to modprobe.conf(5).  At the least, it was used
	to do just that something like a decade ago (IOW, as of 2.4.)

$ /sbin/modprobe -c | grep -F -- 'char-major-10-1 ' 
alias char-major-10-1 psmouse
$ 

 >> However, I wonder, how often these numbers will change given that
 >> the system's hardware configuration will essentially be fixed for
 >> all the foreseeable future?  I guess it won't be something like
 >> “every (other) kernel's release”, right?

 > Names could change even at every boot.

	Any reasons for that other than the order in which the modules
	get loaded?

 > Anyway, you have equiv.  Try to use it and look what happens.

	I've never heard of that (and Googling for “linux equiv” doesn't
	seem to return anything relevant to the problem.)  What's it?

	TIA.

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