On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 09:54:07AM -0400, Filipe Brandenburger wrote: > On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 00:21, Clint Dilks <clintd at scms.waikato.ac.nz> wrote: > > 2. Is modifying /etc/makedev.d/01linux-2.6.x likely to cause me issues in > > future ? > > Possibly, since this file is owned by the MAKEDEV rpm. If there is an > upgrade in MAKEDEV, it may overwrite this file. Or if it doesn't, but > there was an addition of a new device there, you would not get the new > device. I would say it would be safer to create a separate file > instead of modifying those. In the future may include a clean install. Thus the change needs to be entered in your off line notebook so you can recall the magic you are building in your box. Check to see if the RPM builder marked it as a config file. rpm -qc MAKEDEV rpm -qV MAKEDEV If it is a config file it will be paired with or as an *rpmnew or *rpmsave file. http://www.redhat.com/docs/books/max-rpm/max-rpm-html/s1-rpm-install-additional-options.html If it is not a config file you will need to be able to regenerate it from your notes. Adding a local file still requires a notebook entry and also eliminates the ability to do a simple search for *rpmnew or *rpmsave files. Sysadmins need to watch for and as needed clean up these files.... $ sudo updatedb; locate -i rpm | egrep rpmnew\|rpmsave ..... The key to udev is that it is "udev - userspace device management". Today in Linux most devices are under udev. Some devices are critical to system operation and need to be in place before the user space 'udev' tools can picks up the ball. The bonds depend on the distro.. http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/hotplug/udev.git;a=blob;hb=HEAD;f=README http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev Another key is that the list of possible devices in a system is large, very large. If you look at all the possible devices the list can burst the limits imposed by major and minor device numbers. A number of solutions surfaced to address and manage this overflow -- udev is one of the solutions that seems to work. -- T o m M i t c h e l l Found me a new hat, now what?