Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

[David Zeuthen]

On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 09:31 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Is it a user program that has changed my /dev/hdX into /dev/sdX more or 
> less arbitrarily - or turns what used to be detected as eth0 into eth2 
> when a different kernel is booted?  Admittedly it has been a while since 
> I've used Solaris, but I can't recall anything like that ever happening 
> with it.  In a unix-like system where access to everything is through 
> its device/file name, what is more fundamental than that?

This is a flawed example. The problem is that you're relying on names
assigned in an irregular fashion and it will happen on Solaris as well
if you move disks between controllers etc. The way to do this in the
modern world is to rely on persistent names. See /dev/disk/* and the
udev rules for stable network interface names.  Of course you can argue
that e.g. /dev/sda or /dev/hda should stay stable but I doubt you're
going to find much sympathy for such a point of view.

        David