Re: no ioctls for serial ports? [was Re: LANANA: To Pending DeviceNum

[Oliver Xymoron]

On Sun, 20 May 2001, Alexander Viro wrote:

> On Sun, 20 May 2001, Abramo Bagnara wrote:
>
> > > It may have several. Which one?
> >
> > Can you explain better this?
>
> Example: console. You want to be able to pass font changes. I'm
> less than sure that putting them on the same channel as, e.g.,
> keyboard mapping changes is a good idea.

If you've got side channels that are of a packet nature (aka commands),
then they can all happily coexist on one device. If you've got channels
that are streams or intended for mmap, those ought to be different
devices.

> Moreover, we have channels that are not tied to a particular device -
> they are for a group of them. Example: setting timings for IDE controller.
> Sure, we can just say "open /dev/hda instead of /dev/hda5", but then we
> are back to the "find related file" problem you tried to avoid.

Hmmm.. I suspect there's a permission issue lurking here anyway. It's
probably valid to want to give out raw partition access, say to a
database user, but not to give out permission to fiddle with the
underlying drive.

--
 "Love the dolphins," she advised him. "Write by W.A.S.T.E.."

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