From owner-freebsd-current Thu Mar 21 05:32:50 1996 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id FAA26157 for current-outgoing; Thu, 21 Mar 1996 05:32:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from Root.COM (implode.Root.COM [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA26152 for ; Thu, 21 Mar 1996 05:32:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by Root.COM (8.6.12/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA05288; Thu, 21 Mar 1996 05:31:11 -0800 Message-Id: <199603211331.FAA05288@Root.COM> X-Authentication-Warning: implode.Root.COM: Host localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: Terry Lambert , julian@ref.tfs.com (JULIAN Elischer), scrappy@ki.net, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: DEVFS vs "regular /dev" In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:21:42 GMT." <625.827414502@critter.tfs.com> From: David Greenman Reply-To: davidg@Root.COM Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 05:31:11 -0800 Sender: owner-current@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> >> >So you don't need a mounted root to have a mounted /dev, of course! >> >> >> >> That's silly. The root filesystem is mounted long before /dev would be, > >> > >> >Not that long before. /sbin/init will have to mount it to get in touch >> >with /dev/console, /dev/null and ... I just re-read what you said...I think you might have read what I wrote backwards - the root filesystem is mounted automagically in the kernel very early in system startup. /dev, whether it's done in the kernel or in /sbin/init, would be done quite a bit later in relative terms. >> No, it will be mounted in the kernel. > >ok, that is not really needed... If we do the mount in /sbin/init and it fails for some reason (like the mount point doesn't exist), then we'll have no way to inform the operator (there isn't a /dev/console to write to). If we do it in the kernel, we can emit a message saying "/dev: not found" or something. -DG David Greenman Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project