# Re: \[RFC\] simple\_char: New infrastructure to simplify chardev management

- From: Andy Lutomirski \<hidden\>
- Date: 2015-02-11 20:04:55 
- List: linux-api
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2015/02/4429788
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2015/02/4429198/t.md

```text
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
[ref] wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 03:44:05PM -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> This isn't adequately tested, and I don't have a demonstration (yet).
>> It's here for review for whether it's a good idea in the first place
>> and for weather the fully_dynamic mechanism is a good idea.
>>
>> The current character device interfaces are IMO awful.
>
> That's a total understatement.  Redoing the char interface has been in
> my todo list for a decade now.  It's the complexity that happens to be
> used by just a handful of drivers that have prevented me from doing the
> rework in the past.  Creating a "new" interface that we then port code
> to is a very good idea, as it can happen over time in a much more
> orderly way.
>
> And we can throw the kernel-janitors people at it once it's working, to
> convert the rest of the tree, providing them a useful outlet for their
> need for patch cleanups :)
>
> So yes, I'm all for this, thanks so much for looking into this.  I'm at
> a conference this week, but will go over it on the plane home and give
> you some review comments.

It would be nice to make the reference counting cleaner, perhaps by
tying a chardev minor more directly to a struct device, but I wasn't
sure how to do that usefully.

--Andy

>
> greg k-h



-- 
Andy Lutomirski
AMA Capital Management, LLC
```