On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Jo l'Indien wrote: > With a 2.4.1-pre10 kernel, I noticed that /dev/cpu/microcode > was created as a file, and note as a node in the devfs. > So, I made this very little patch to correct this: > [bogus patch deleted] Hi Jocelyn, No, that file is created as a regular file for a purpose. The design of the Linux IA32 microcode device driver (btw, described fully in latest Linux Magazine) is such that it uses a characted device node on misc major _AND_ a regular file in devfs namespace, if available. The initialization succeeds if at least one of the method succeeds. If you are wondering why is this the case, the answer is -- ask yourself "what information can regular files provide which device nodes do not?". The answer is "file size" so I store an extra bit of information in the size of the regular devfs file which cannot be stored in the device node inode. That is the only benefit of devfs (in this case) -- just an extra integer to stash somewhere. But this has a lot of consequences, e.g. it means you could (in theory) just use your favourite binary editor to "edit" the microcode on the cpu "directly". (for this to work in practice you would need to instruct the editor of the suitable buffer sizes or to furnish the driver with a huge amount of extra logic to accumulate the chunks received of any size into appropriate ones). So, in short, no, your patch is of no use, thank you. Regards, Tigran PS. Also, where did you get that [EMAIL PROTECTED] from? The microcode.c plainly says "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" in recent references. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/