[PATCH 00/10] Enhance /dev/mem to allow read/write of arbitrary physical addresses

On 20/06/11 10:42, Matthew Wilcox wrote:

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 09:02:17AM +1000, Ryan Mallon wrote:

quoted

There are drivers where this makes sense. For example an FPGA device
with a proprietary register layout on the memory bus can be done this
way. The FPGA can simply be mapped in user-space via /dev/mem and
handled there. If the device requires no access other than memory bus
reads and writes then writing a custom char device driver just to get an
mmap function seems a bit overkill.

Calling a 30 line device driver "overkill" might in itself be overkill?

I mean overkill in the sense of having to write the driver at all. Why 
write a 30 line driver just to re-implement some functionality of /dev/mem?

~Ryan