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Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 16:10:58 -0800
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@transmeta.com>
Organization: Transmeta Corporation
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To: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
CC: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tytso@MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Larger dev_t
References: <Pine.LNX.4.31.0103271606420.25282-100000@penguin.transmeta.com>
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Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Alan Cox wrote:
> >
> > A major for 'disk' generically makes total sense. Classing raid controllers
> > as 'scsi' isnt neccessarily accurate. A major for 'serial ports' would also
> > solve a lot of misery
> 
> Exactly. It's just that for historical reasons, I think the major for
> "disk" should be either the old IDE or SCSI one, which just can show more
> devices. That way old installers etc work without having to suddenly start
> knowing about /dev/disk0.
> 
> But hey, maybe I'm wrong.
> 

They would still have to change, since now we'd have to worry about
/dev/hd* having changed meanings; also, you now cannot create a
backward-compatible /dev since /dev/hdc is (22,0), etc, in the current
scheme.  The SCSI scheme is also not acceptable; it has been a
long-standing problem that it doesn't allow enough partitions per disk.

	-hpa

-- 
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"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
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