Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net>]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:14:11 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> 
> Again, bottom line, report kernel breakage of userspace, the same kernel 
> cycle that breakage happens if at all possible, which means testing an 
> early enough kernel rc (rc3 is good)
>

That certainly is good advice but unfortunately, even if I had the
desire, I do not have the wherewithal to follow kernel development
too closely.  But the next time I see breakage with a new kernel
I will fire off a quick message to LKML about it.

Also, my example of the changes in USB device nodes is not the only
recent occurrence of /dev tree modifications.  The kernel folks also
removed the static /dev/rtc, or real-time clock device node.  In place
there is now /dev/rtc1, /dev/rtc2, etc., and the intention is to
dynamically allocate these nodes with udev.  This change broke my
use space but it was easy to fix.

But does this represent a creep toward having the kernel depend on
the user-space udev (or its equivalents)?  Because I don't closely
follow kernel development I cannot say for certain, but it sure seems
that way.

Let's face it.  The static device tree is "old" Unix and is way
out of the current fashion.  The "old" way is to know your hardware
and manually configure accordingly.  The "new" way is to have the system
determine your hardware and do the configuration for you (based
on a distributed database of zillions of entries, possibilities,
and permutations).