Can mdev replace udev in an ordinary linux distro?

[Laurent Bercot]

> No, the simplest approach for dynamic /dev is devtmpfs. mdev/udev comes
> in when you want to have custom permissions or trigger actions on
> hotplug.

 Oh, right, I had forgotten about devtmpfs.

 I personally don't like devtmpfs because it goes precisely against the
concept of udev in the first place: it adds code in the kernel to handle
things that could very well be done in userspace. The justification I
have heard for devtmpfs is "You might want to have a dynamic writable /dev
in RAM and a read-only /", which is no justification to me because I have
been doing exactly that for years without devtmpfs. It only requires doing
a bit of setup in process 1 before executing the real long-running init,
a concept that's surprisingly hard to get through some skulls.

-- 
 Laurent