I don't want to use devfs

AdNauseam · n00b Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 3

I just installed gentoo with the 2.6.3 kernel. I intenionally disabled devfs support however. When the system booted I got the message saying I needed to enable devfs. The system seems to work fine.

I don't want to run devfs or udev. I'd basically like to know what I have to remove/change to do this.

This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it when I searched the forums.

Catach · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:49 am Post subject:

if you dont want to run devfs or udev, what are you going to use?

my advice is to use devfs: it saves a lot of clutter and is reasonably easy to understand, maintaining old symlinks (like /dev/hdc -> /dev/cdroms/cdrom0) to be the old dev filesystem compatible.
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charlieg · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 10:34 am Post subject:

Why not use udev? Udev is good.
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infirit · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 12:12 pm Post subject:

Gentoo can work with a static /dev. You have to run mkdevices script when installing gentoo. But i recomend compiling devfs in and passing "devfs=nomount" to the kernel. So when you need devfs you can remove this from the kernel options and you dont have to recompile your kernel.
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AdNauseam · n00b Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 3

I'm running a static /dev currently, and it seems to be working fine, but during boot gentoo pauses to tell me that I need devfs support.

I want to remove this warning. I'm assuming there is a reason why it's there so I don't want to just edit the init scripts.

Useful Idiot · Guru Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 329 Location: Finland

I have this option in my /etc/conf.d/rc:

CMI · Apprentice Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 205

I'm running with a static /dev

I belive I used cp -Rp on my dynamic dev to create a static dev tree, then cleaned it up. (I keep a seperate static dev in /sdev, as if Gentoo decides to run DevFSD it might fudge something up)

Then I edited /sbin/rc to never run DevFSD, and made sure the kernel did not automount it. I don't recall what else I did.
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AdNauseam · n00b Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the help. Devfs seems to be totally gone and my system is still stable.

I edited both /etc/conf.d/rc and /sbin/rc so that devfs would not be used. I also unmerged devfsd. I may have edited some other files, but I don't think so.

Now to figure fix framebuffers so I don't have a blank screen when they are used.

termee · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 76

Is there any advantage to not using devfs?

CMI · Apprentice Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 205

floam · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 10:30 pm Post subject:

Okay, but udev fixes that. Why not use udev? If you're upset with devfs I would highly reccomend trying it, I love it.
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CMI · Apprentice Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 205

floam · Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 4:48 am Post subject:

It's not simple to add to. Say you get a new Camera or printer, with udev you'd just plug it in, and within seconds hotplug would recognize it, load a module, and a udev /dev/ node will be made, with your static one, it'd be much more work, and much less simple.
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CMI · Apprentice Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 205

floam · Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 8:34 am Post subject:

Wowa, modules don't suck. Monolithic kernels are gross. There are many things that do not belong in a kernel image.
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termee · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 76

Does it make sense to have devfs on a router with a monolithic kernel?