In message <199810032218.PAA09322@cue.bc.ca>, John Nemeth writes:
>     Really?  With just a quick glance at the machine can you tell me
>what "c2" is?  Nine times out of ten you won't be able to do that.

Depends on the machine.  Sometimes it's sort of convenient.

>99
>per cent of the time I do system administration remotely, and
>therefore can't look at the physical hardware.  "c2t15d0" is just as
>arbitrary as "sd47", except that it is longer and very awkward to
>type.  Now explain to me why SysV scheme makes so much more sense.

I add a new drive to a system.  Why should the ID of that new drive
change the device name of an existing drive?  For that matter, why
should whether or not it changes the name of an existing drive
depend on their relative ID's?

I can deal with "new controller changes everything".  I don't change
controllers as often as I change drives.

>     One of the reason I run NetBSD is because it is BSD!  If NetBSD
>were to become yet another variant of SysV, I, and probably many
>others, would be looking for another operating system to use.

The mere fact that we don't want something exactly like SysV doesn't
mean we should reject their good ideas.  Having used both, and decided
I like BSD better, I *still* wish we had /dev/disk/..., runlevels,
and other features I *used* to administer SysV boxes with less sysadmin
effort.  I'm sometimes okay with having the machine work a little
extra to save me time.

>I've
>administrated just about every major variant of SysV at one time or
>another, and I really don't like it.  It has major bloat and a lot of
>unnecessary complexity (especially in the areas of I/O and boot time
>configuration).  If you want SysV, then you know where to find it.
>Heck, Solaris x86, SCO OpenServer, and SCO UnixWare are all free for
>personal and non-commercial use, so you can have your pick.

Why should I be stuck with such horrible bloatware to get a few good
ideas?

Alternatively, why should I have to give up run-levels to have a
reasonable filesystem?

>If you
>look at the lineage of SCO UnixWare, you will note that it is the
>reference implementation of SVR4, which should keep you guys happy.

BUT I DON'T WANT SVR4!

I just think some of their ideas are good.

What's wrong with importing ideas?

I don't think anyone's arguing that sdX should go away; I just want
an alternative sometimes.

>Now, stop trying to turn NetBSD into yet another variant of SysV!!!

Now, stop exaggerating.  I suppose next we'll be hearing about how we're
turning NetBSD into yet another variant of Linux, because we've got support
for hardware now that used to only be supported by Linux.

>Note, that this rant isn't just aimed at you, but rather everybody
>that is trying to turn NetBSD into SysV (*especially* Greg, who keeps
>restarting this idiotic discussion every few months).

I don't think anyone's trying to turn NetBSD into SysV.

My comment about NIH was, in fact, directed at people who think importing
a feature is converting an entire system to a new philosophy.

The SysV people did a lot of things wrong.  They did some right, too.

You don't like it?  That's fine.  I loathe csh.  I never use it.  I
don't like it.  I never want it.  It's good that it's in the system.

>     Tell me what "the 1st SCSI controller attached to this system"
>is.  In general, you can't.  Heck, you can't even depend on the OS not
>to re-arrange the controllers on you.  That blows your whole argument
>out of the water.  On the HP I have, c0 is a card sitting in an EISA
>(aka GSC) slot, and c1 is the "Built-in SCSI".  Does that make any
>sense?  Of course not.

No, but does it change regularly?  Probably not.

The argument is not "this naming scheme is, for all times, all
situations, and all people, superior".  It's "this naming cheme
is, for some situations, for some people, superior".

>     Personally, I hate it!  It's ugly and awkward as hell.  Also, as
>has been pointed out, it doesn't work in the real world, the way you
>guys fantasize it working.

It may come as a shock, but I base my enthusiasm for it on real world
experience.

>Once the system is setup, I really don't
>care where my disks are located, and any new disks can simply be
>tagged onto the end of the list.  Why should I have to remember to use
>'mount /dev/dsk/c1t2d0 /cdrom' (taken from an HP-UX system just now; I
>had to use ioscan to remind myself where the cdrom drive is) as
>opposed to simply 'mount /dev/cd0a /cdrom' in order to view a cdrom?

You shouldn't have to.

You should be able to say 'mount /dev/dsk/c1t6d0 /mnt' instead of
having to re-read the dmesg output to see whether it's 'sd0', 'sd1',
or 'sd2' at the moment.

>The first command is really stupid.  This idiotic device naming scheme
>is one of the things I really hate about having to administrate SysV
>machines (currently Solaris 2.5 and HP-UX 10.20).

What you hate, IMHO, is a lack of choice.  I will state that, if I had
to have only one, I'd rather have the NetBSD naming scheme.  I'd rather
have both.

-s