Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753863Ab1DSIeR (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:34:17 -0400 Received: from h1446028.stratoserver.net ([85.214.92.142]:36855 "EHLO mail.ahsoftware.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752296Ab1DSIeN (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:34:13 -0400 Message-ID: <4DAD48FC.5040003@ahsoftware.de> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:34:04 +0200 From: Alexander Holler User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110307 Fedora/3.1.9-0.38.b3pre.fc13 Lightning/1.0b3pre Thunderbird/3.1.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Frysinger CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/1] Implement /dev/byte (a generic byte source similiar to /dev/zero) References: <1303126676-3456-1-git-send-email-holler@ahsoftware.de> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2030 Lines: 44 Am 18.04.2011 15:57, schrieb Mike Frysinger: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 07:37, Alexander Holler wrote: >> I don't know if this patch qualifies for inclusion into the mainline kernel, but >> maybe someone else would be interested in such, so I'm posting it here. >> >> The main idea for that device was to have a source for 0xff to clear FLASH based >> devices. And to make it more generic, I've added the possibility to change the >> default value on a per file descriptor basis. >> >> I don't want to discuss if such a device makes sense or if such should be done >> in userspace only. I like it as a device, otherwise I wouldn't have written it. >> So besides this message, I will not take part in such a discussion. > > cant you do this with cuse ? that would satisfy the "has to be a > device" requirement while keeping it in userspace. I know almost nothing about cuse, but I assume it should be possible to build such a device with cuse too. > although, i have a hard time seeing there be a realistic perf diff with: > tr '\000' '\377'< /dev/zero | dd ...... There are many other ways to achieve such in userspace (even without using /dev/zero) and I want to avoid such a discussion. As for /dev/zero there are many other possible reasons to use such a device, besides filling something with a value. For me it's as reasonable as dev/zero, just that it offers a bit more flexibility and provides another, at least for me useful, default value. Maybe /dev/nzero would have been a good name too. ;) But I don't really care about inclusion into the kernel, it's just something I had lying around (and needed only marginally work to finalize as a proper patch) and I thought someone else could find it usefull and I should share that here. Regards, Alexander Holler -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/