Naming device driver

Crunch · 02-10-2005, 07:02 PM

I'm going to be creating a device driver for the OpenBSD kernel (particularly a network card driver), any idea how naming the device works? I'm not really sure how the names are conventionally came about to, for example here is a network card "fxp0", or, "xl0". Thanks ahead of time.

frob23 · 02-11-2005, 08:06 AM

Traditionally, the device is named with some abbreviation of the chipset it is designed to control.

Code:

     The xl driver provides support for PCI ethernet adapters and embedded
     controllers based on the 3Com "boomerang," "cyclone," "hurricane" and
     "tornado" bus-master Etherlink XL chips

This may not always be the case but if your chipset has some easy, unused abbreviation, then it might be best to go in that direction. But the best idea would be designing it then asking what name would be best for it (have a good working name in case so they can choose to leave the name as you designed it if that is their choice) and be willing to change the name if they come up with one that is more intune with their ideas.

Crunch · 02-12-2005, 10:46 AM

Alright, thanks. I was thinking about doing that, but I was caught up on naming the functions correctly and didn't feel like going back and changing everything, then I remembered sed

Thanks again.