Re: [gentoo-dev] Fwd: Proposal: Declare udev + hotplugd to be the default

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 10:13:34AM -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 09:57, Daniel Armyr wrote:
> > >What are your opinions on this?
> >
> > Please ensure that there is a proper upgrade guide at the time when
> > support for devfs is discontinued completely. I assume the upgrade is
> > non-trivial to do on an existing system.
>
> There are no intentions of removing devfs support currently, as it is
> required for 2.4 kernels (under Gentoo) since they do not use udev.
>
> As for the "upgrade" it is quite simple.
>
> emerge udev
>
> ...and that's really it.  You can test it on a currently-running 2.6
> kernel that uses devfs by using devfs=nomount on the kernel command
> line.  This will cause your system to boot up using udev.  If you like
> udev, you can remove devfs support from your kernel.  There's no kernel
> support needed for udev other than hotplug support.

Actually, it's not that simple in all cases, apparently.

I have 2.6.7-gentoo-r1 with the usual plethora of drivers for sound,
framebuffer, DRI, etc, which works pretty well with devfs.

However, after merging udev (as per our Udev Guide), something funky
happens in boot; all console fonts are erased!

I see my trusty cursor blinking away, but all text is either black on black,
or the font tables have been nuked.


Presumably, this is a driver/setup problem that for some reason is not
exhibitied using devfs, probably because I don't load the offending driver.


I should probably sit down and track down which driver is the culprit, but
I've simply not had the time.


Just a word of warning.


-- Karl T

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