linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] simple_char: New infrastructure to simplify chardev management

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Date:	Wed, 11 Feb 2015 12:04:32 -0800
From:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
To:	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC] simple_char: New infrastructure to simplify chardev management

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 03:44:05PM -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> This isn't adequately tested, and I don't have a demonstration (yet).
>> It's here for review for whether it's a good idea in the first place
>> and for weather the fully_dynamic mechanism is a good idea.
>>
>> The current character device interfaces are IMO awful.
>
> That's a total understatement.  Redoing the char interface has been in
> my todo list for a decade now.  It's the complexity that happens to be
> used by just a handful of drivers that have prevented me from doing the
> rework in the past.  Creating a "new" interface that we then port code
> to is a very good idea, as it can happen over time in a much more
> orderly way.
>
> And we can throw the kernel-janitors people at it once it's working, to
> convert the rest of the tree, providing them a useful outlet for their
> need for patch cleanups :)
>
> So yes, I'm all for this, thanks so much for looking into this.  I'm at
> a conference this week, but will go over it on the plane home and give
> you some review comments.

It would be nice to make the reference counting cleaner, perhaps by
tying a chardev minor more directly to a struct device, but I wasn't
sure how to do that usefully.

--Andy

>
> greg k-h



-- 
Andy Lutomirski
AMA Capital Management, LLC
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