Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 23rd Aug 2008 15:31 UTC
"Once upon a time, a Linux distribution would be installed with a /dev directory fully populated with device files. Most of them represented hardware which would never be present on the installed system, but they needed to be there just in case. Toward the end of this era, it was not uncommon to find systems with around 20,000 special files in /dev, and the number continued to grow. This scheme was unwieldy at best, and the growing number of hotpluggable devices (and devices in general) threatened to make the whole structure collapse under its own weight. Something, clearly, needed to be done." The solution came in the form of udev, and udev uses rules to determine how it should handle devices. This allows distributors to tweak how they want devices to be handled. "Or maybe not. Udev maintainer Kay Sievers has recently let it be known that he would like all distributors to be using the set of udev rules shipped with the program itself." ComputerWorld dives into the situation.
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Member since:
2008-07-15
Ah, the wonderful world of Linux standards... or rather, the lack of them. However, this is a step in the right direction. No, really? Let's make all distros use the same udev rules, so device names are the same? Perish the thought! Somehow, I'm not surprised to see Debian at the forefront of the opposition--they seem to believe that anyone who doesn't follow their guidelines is an idiot who needs to be educated. If their Udev rules are so much more elegant than the default, I for one agree with the maintainer of udev: send them along upstream. I don't understand why Debian has to hold out against just about every standard. But then, I guess its their choice to do so. I just hope that most distros abide by this request to standardize udev. Then, hopefully, we can standardize the rest... eventually.
What's interesting, though, is that the Linux distros this is aimed at are the ones who patch everything anyway--Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE, etc. Since they patch the hell out of everything already including their kernel, it's unsurprising they patch udev. I don't use any of these distros anymore, as I got sick of the quirks introduced by all these so-called improvements (I started on Slackware, and I still prefer the lean and mean, mostly upstream-compliant distros). So, I believe this udev issue is simply the tip of the iceburg, though likely to set a precedent for how distros deal with patching and upstream in general.