these are my notes when migrating to devfs. this is meant as a true migration: i don't use that silly daemon for compatibility with older software. don't do this, unless you know what you do.
regards, andreas p.s. please CC: all comments to me, i don't read much of debian-user... 1.) compile a 2.4.* kernel with CONFIG_DEVFS_FS=y CONFIG_DEVFS_MOUNT=y 2.) boot. fsck will fail. do manual fsck, remount / rw, edit /etc/fstab: /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 / ext2 defaults 0 1 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6 /local ext2 defaults 0 2 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/tagret1/lun0/cd /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 3.) edit syslogd: kill lines with devices like /dev/tty12 or /dev/xconsole (an xterm with "tail -f /var/log/messages" can replace xconsole). 4.) edit /etc/securetty like this: vc/1 vc/2 vc/3 vc/4 vc/5 vc/6 5.) edit /etc/inittab like this: 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/1 2:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/2 3:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/3 4:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/4 5:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/5 6:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 /dev/vc/6 6.) edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 like this: Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "PS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/misc/psaux" EndSection 7.) edit /etc/isdn/init.d.functions, change all references to "/dev/" to "/dev/isdn" (except those for /dev/null !). add a "ln -sf /dev/isdn/isdnctrl /dev" and "ln -sf /dev/isdn/isdninfo /dev" to some early boot script (or create one). 8.) edit /etc/init.d/hwclock (on potato debian systems): add a "ln -sf /dev/vc/1 /dev/tty1" at the beginning and a "rm /dev/tty1" at the end. 9.) in /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: add "chown $USER /dev/sound/*" and in /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default: add "chown root /dev/sound/*" 10.) edit /etc/printcap, replace /dev/lp1 (or lp0) with /dev/printers/0 11.) serial: "/etc/init.d/serial stop" should write a new /etc/serial.conf, and everything is fine. 12.) edit /etc/init.d/makedev: comment the onyl line in start. (makedev is in /sbin for years, no nead for supporting old cruft. hey, you don´t need to create any devices anyway.) 13.) set an environment (for example in .bashrc): export CDTOOLDEV=/dev/ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/cd this way cdplay/cdstop/cdtools/... will work again. 14.) esd doesn´t find it´s device. use the gnome configuration stuff to add a startup programm: "esd -d /dev/sound/dsp1" done.