Date:        Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:50:09 +0200
    From:        Ignatios Souvatzis <ignatios@theory.cs.uni-bonn.de>
    Message-ID:  <20010628125009.A28656@theory.cs.uni-bonn.de>


  | Well, but as long as the userland problem isn't solved, you can't use your
  | changed kernel at all...

I think that you and mjacob were both missing ...

  4.2.	Userland - config(8)

  4.2.1.	Grammer

  device-switch <name> chr <num> [blk <num>] [<options>]

  name		- The prefix of bdevsw/cdevsw entry (required)
  chr		- A character major number (required)
  blk		- A block major number (optional)
  options	- Conditions to determine whether should be attached or not
		  (optional)

That is, the major device numbers are still being wired into the
kernel, they're not being dynamically allocated - just now that info
is coming from the config machinery, rather that someone hand editing
the conf.c file and corectly positioning the list of functions in the
[cb]devsw tables.

Really, if Matt Thomas looks at this and says "real cool" or something,
it really can't be a totally broken design, can it?

kre