On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, mike wrote: > Hello all, > I was reading the thread subject=(error message interpretation > help?) and the reference to "devfs". I have a stock installation of > MDK9.2 and my understanding is that "devfs" is in the kernel or > (module maybe?) by default. > I should say right off the bat that I am a major newbie so bare with > me. I've heard complaints about "devfs" before, for one thing the > naming convention I noticed on my "df" output alittle long and hard > to read for instance. > > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on > /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 > 380M 115M 246M 32% / > > Someone told me that was because I had "devfs" I did some reading > and I think I can change that part on my system with > /etc/devfsd.conf but my question is do I really need "devfs" and if > not how can I remove it or disable it, and do I need to replace it > with something else? > >
Based on past experience with mdk8.2, which used devfs and worked extremely badly for me, I'd recommend doing without. However, that's a lot easier said than done. You'll need to create static devices, and you won't be able to do this while devfs is blocking access to the real underlying /dev, which means booting from a recovery CD as well as knowing which devices you need, and which groups should own them. I also take the view that most people don't change their underlying hardware and peripherals very often, so for me manually adding a device when I add a usb printer is par for the course. If you don't want that level of involvement and you don't have any problems with it, keep it. Funnily enough, based on an email a little while ago on lkml about udev, I thought Mandrake had already moved away from devfs. [ udev reimplements some of what devfs does, with 2.6 kernels, but its still at an early stage and certainly not intended as a drop-in replacement. ] Ken -- Brighton tops UK Jedi league http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/35186.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
