Linux Device Registry (DevReg)

This patch is now obsolete
The Linux Device Registry (devreg) is a kernel patch that adds a device database to the /proc filesystem. It collects all information about the physical devices, creates persistent device ids for them and manages the relations between the physical devices and their drivers.
Devreg has three purposes:
Warning! The patch is experimental and only few devices are supported.

Status:
Patch works for PCI, SCSI and USB devices, the following drivers will register types and/or device files:
hid/USB, hub/USB, printer/USB, emu10k1/PCI, es1371/PCI, sd/SCSI, mice/PS/2.
The following PCI drivers should work, but are untested (soundcards only):
via82cxxx, trident, sonicvibes, maestro3, maestro, i810_audio, esssolo1, es1370, cs46xx, cs4281, btaudio

Overview Download the patch for Linux 2.4.9, devreg version 0.3.3 from 2001/10/9
Open issues (please read before complaining) Download source 0.3.3 with build scripts and ChangeLog (for development, note that it is still for 2.4.9!)
CHANGES, version history Kernel-API for device and bus drivers that support DevReg
Libdevreg user-space library: C API and C++ API Download libdevreg 0.3.2 from 2001/8/8
Patch containing only devreg 0.3.1's proc fs changes Example output of all devreg files and their values

Installation:
  1. Prepare a regular kernel in /usr/src/linux, make sure that DevFS is installed, see http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/docs/devfs.html.
  2. Patch your kernel source:
    cd /usr/src/linux
    patch -p1 < ../devreg-2.4.9-0.3.3.diff
  3. Select CONFIG_DEVREG (if you use menuconfig or xconfig: it is in file systems -> /dev file system -> device registry)
  4. Compile your kernel and ALL modules and install them like usual. Some external drivers have to be patched, too. For NVIDIA drivers use this DevFS patch. If you use Alsa you will get several compile errors: add a "NULL" as last argument to all function invocations that fail.
  5. After booting the new kernel you should see the /proc/devreg directory

Similar facilities in other OSes



Last update: December 1st 2001 - contact me at tim@tjansen.de - GnuPG Public Key