Steve Litt:
> On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 13:02:01 -0700
> Rick Moen <rick@???> wrote:
>
> > https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev
> >
> > Quoting the latter:
> >
> > Will mdev work on my system?
> >
> > The mdev application is definitely suitable as long as the system
> > does not use a full-fledged desktop environment. Note that a desktop
> > environment is not required to run AbiWord, Firefox, GIMP, Gnumeric,
> > etc. However, KOffice applications like KMail seem to pull in most
> > of KDE as a dependency. In general, when using KDE or GNOME, mdev is
> > not suitable. Also using LVM might be troublesome.
>
> Wait a minute. This is getting interesting. I seem to hear you saying
> that, until Devuan has vdev, I could replace udev with mdev from
> busybox, but only if I don't use a "full-fledged desktop environment."

>From https://busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html

mdev
    mdev [-s]
            -s      Scan /sys and populate /dev during system boot
    It can be run by kernel as a hotplug helper. To activate it:
    echo /bin/mdev >/proc/sys/kernel/hotplug It uses /etc/mdev.conf
    with lines [-]DEVNAME UID:GID PERM [>|=PATH] [@|$|*PROG]

What mdev probably is missing is libudev which some programs whishes to
use.

> Can I assume for this email thread that a "desktop environment" is a UI
> that has a distinct part that serves as a window manager? If so, what
> makes a desktop enironment "full-fledged?" Would it be by any chance
> that it gets started up by a display manager, instead of by the startx
> command?

A desktop environment is simply a X-session where some program covers
or uses the root window to present a destop metaphor. There is no
reason why you couldn't start that from startx, xinit or a display
manager. "Full-fledged" is probably intended to mean something with
lots of bells and whistles.

> You're a server guy, whereas I'm a desktop guy who likes to have his
> underlying operating system built like a server. Given my situation, it
> looks to me like I'd need to just replace udev commands with mdev
> commands in a few rc scripts and init scripts. That sound reasonable?

You could also just use a traditional static /dev, given that you can
compile in whatever is needed to boot. It will work when your root is
on some kind of simple disk setup. What you need udev et al. for is
usb, complex disk setups, auto kbd and config file in X and probably
other things I don't know about.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aspö Data
Lilla Aspö 148
S-742 94 Östhammar
Sweden
+46 173 140 57