In message: <alpine.NEB.0.99.0707061734290.1145@localhost>
            David Brownlee <abs@NetBSD.org> writes:
: On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, M. Warner Losh wrote:
: 
: > Personally, I think USBVERBOSE was a bad idea and should be retired.
: > The place for large tables of device names is in userland, not stuck
: > in wired memory in the kernel.  Without USBVERBOSE, the amount of
: > information is adequate to determine a number of things about the
: > ugen device that just attached, for example.  Since there are dozens
: > of entries in this file already that NetBSD doesn't support, adding
: > more only adds size to the USBVERBOSE kernels.
: >
: > However, I know people like to be able to more completely identify usb
: > devices.  I've started working on installing src/sys/dev/usb/usbdevs
: > into the same place that FreeBSD installs its pci device database
: > file.  I've also started modifications to usbdevs(1) to read this file
: > and optionally print out a longer name from this file.
: >
: > If I were to do that, would it be acceptible to the larger NetBSD
: > community for me to commit the merged file and fix the drivers that
: > reference the names that will change?  I'm happy to do the leg work
: > here, and I do have access to the NetBSD repository to do so.
: 
:  	Another idea, which may be more work than needed, but would
:  	potentially cover more bases:
: 
:  	Have {USB,PCI,MII}VERBOSE add the strings to a separate
:  	ELF section of the kernel. If present this section is loaded
:  	and referenced for autoconfig, then freed. If dynamic
:  	autoconfig occurs after userland has started you could
:  	optionally attempt to load it in again, but diminishing
:  	returns really kick in then.

I tend to agree.  This has a big 'cool' factor, but I tend to agree
that its value would be limited.

:  	Whether or nor any of that occurs, I'd be happy to see
:  	usbdevs(1) referencing a file with the verbose data, though
:  	my opinion may be worth the paper on which its written :)

I'll let people know when I have something.

Warner