[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: [PATCH] mga_vid and tdfx_vid char-major with module parameter

[Hans-Andreas Engel]

On Friday, March 14, 2003, at 06:27 PM, Tobias Diedrich wrote:

> Alban Bedel wrote:
>
>> BTW for tdfx_vid i just used the same major,minor as mga_vid. That's
>> probably not a so good idea. I don't really know what minor are for. So
>> what are the advice, use another major or minor ?
>
> Minors are for multiple devices of the same kind, the patch should
> really use multiple minors instead of multiple majors.

I completely agree, using multiple minors would be a better solution. 
However, the current implementation of mga_vid.c is not indended to be 
used with multiple cards. Thus, supporting multiple cards with (the 
same) mga_vid driver using minors would require a major (i.e., 
substantial) rewrite.

Using the short suggested patch, introducing multiple majors, one can 
just load the mga_vid module multiple times (once for each card). The 
drawback of this method is that it uses somewhat more memory (a few KB) 
and is less elegant.

Note that allowing a flexible major number even makes sense if support 
of multiple devices with one mga_vid driver is added at a later time.

Hansres