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Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 10:57:02 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: mkcramfs porting done - device file issues....
Message-ID: <20020530105702.B30892@cygbert.vinschen.de>
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References: <20020529101957 DOT I30892 AT cygbert DOT vinschen DOT de> <GCEKJAPMFCCHLBOOCMIBKEOOCLAA DOT for_spam AT gmx DOT de>
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On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 12:41:56AM +0200, gmx wrote:
> Hi Corinna, 
> thanks for reply.
> 
> >minor device numbers is purely internally.  What you *can* do is,
> >create a /dev directory and create (in Windows Explorer) files in
> >it which are named exactly as the devices known to Cygwin.  E. g.
> 
> regarding this , what's the purpose of mknod.exe in cygwin then  ???

There is none.  It's just in there since it's part of fileutils.

> >What would be possible is to add only the device nodes.  They could
> >be implemented like symlinks 
> Yes - that's what had come to my mind...

I did actually implement them some 2 years ago.  But since we don't
have this loadable driver mechanism, it's still not clear if it's
the way to go at all.  Another option would be to load the driver
modules which then get major device numbers only inside of Cygwin
and which maintain their minor device numbers by themselves.  This
proposal would drop the need for device nodes completely.

I hope this makes clear why we don't want to implement something
which isn't filled with life but which *could* block development
at some later point if it turns out that another way is the better
one.

Even if that requires some more work, I'd suggest to port cramfs
to Cygwin by either drop the dependency for the major/minor number
stuff or by implementing it as fhandler inside of Cygwin.

Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Developer                                mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat, Inc.

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