Can mdev replace udev in an ordinary linux distro?

[Natanael Copa]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes at waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:36:39AM +0200, Peter Korsgaard wrote
>>
>> Sure, but devtmpfs is simpler and faster (mdev -s can take a while on
>> slow hw). For simple embedded systems it is very nice.
>
>  But my question was about replacing udev with mdev on an ordinary PC,
> not on a low-power embedded device.  Also, /bin/busybox is present on
> Gentoo linux by default, so it's not really extra code.  And if we
> could remove udev code, it would actually slightly reduce the amount of
> crud on the system.

Why not give Alpine Linux which does exatly this. mdev is used by
default but you can replace it with udev for libudev hotplugging in
Xorg.

> If devtmpfs is a better solution, and can handle
> USB keys/etc, I'd consider it too.  The object is to replace udev code.

I think the drawback with devtmpfs compared to mdev is that (afaik)
you cannot really run any scripts/hooks with devtmpfs. With Alpine
Linux we run hooks for creating /dev/cdrom symlinks and similar.

What we did not have been trying to solve is provide a libudev which
many things depends on nowdays. (bluez, gvfs, libatasmart, libdrm,
libvirt, shotwell, thunar, thunar-volman, udisks, upower, xorg-server
and various of its drivers)

I think those will be the biggest challenge for replacing udev altogether.


-- 
Natanael Copa