> Well, if I understand your meaning, I figure since devfs is the "next big > thing", all legacy devices will soon be gone. Only reason, then, for devfsd > is > so those applications/drivers which are not yet devfs aware will work in the > interim. >
The main reason for devfsd is to autoload modules and manage device permissions not to provide legacy links. On legacy system without devfs modules are autoloaded basing on device numbers and you do not notice it. On system with devfs you not only do not have device nodes to trigger autoloading but you (theoretically) do not even have fixed device numbers because they are managed by devfs itself. Permissions management is not as critical it just comes as extra goody. Still it is something legacy system cannot do. If you preload all your drivers (either compiling them all into kernel or preloading all modules) you can omit devfsd. Permissions management issue still remains but it the same as on system without devfs. If we ever have hotplug for PCI ready ... then we return to this :-) -andrej
