# should I switch to eudev

## ayvango

I haven't updated my system since the beginning of /usr drama. I performed syncing today and got news about updating udev. I'm think it is a good time for switching to eudev but I can not find enough information to decide. I hope someone may answer following questions:

1. Is eudev still in toy state? Can it be really used?

2. Does it seem to last long? Was any intentions to froze it made public?

3. Does eudev require devtmpfs like original udev does?

4. Does eudev introduce any other requirements that I absolutely must know about to boot my system after upgrading?

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## mv

 *ayvango wrote:*   

> 1. Is eudev still in toy state? Can it be really used?

 

It can be used, fully. In fact, I did not realize any change in functionality after I switched to eudev. The main difference for me is that some (actually unnecessary) dependencies are not required just for compiling.

 *Quote:*   

> 2. Does it seem to last long?

 

Who knows?

 *Quote:*   

> Was any intentions to froze it made public?

 

No.

 *Quote:*   

> 3. Does eudev require devtmpfs like original udev does?

 

I assume so, though I didn't try without it. I do not think that there is anything bad about devtmpfs. After all, it is a normal kernel feature.

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## kurly

eudev is no toy; it just hit 1.0 after months of beta.  I have sys-fs/udev in my package.mask, along with systemd.  I know (and eix-test-obsolete confirms) that the lines are obsolete (in the sense that nothing will change if I remove them), but I leave them.

I do use devtmpfs but it's a kernel feature (not a udev thing) that I do not consider harmful.

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## wcg

No problems here.

```

grep eudev /etc/portage/package.keywords/sys-fs

sys-fs/eudev ~amd64

```

```

grep eudev /etc/portage/package.use/sys-fs:

sys-fs/eudev keymap

```

I do not use kernel modules, so some goofiness with

kmod vs module-init-tools may turn up for module users that

I do not see. (eudev defaults to

```

USE="module-init-tools -kmod"

```

I do not know what happens if you reverse those USE flags, disabling

module-init-tools and enabling kmod support in eudev. I left them alone,

but then eudev does not have any module-related work to do on

my systems.)

eudev will want "udev-init-scripts-25".

If you do not want udev-style "persistent network interface names", you

need to create an empty "80-net-name-slot.rules" file in /etc/udev/rules.d/.

It took about 5 minutes to transition from udev-171-r10 and set up the

/etc/portage/package.*/sys-fs files for eudev.

(How can I convince it to skip creating /dev/core on systems where

/proc/kcore does not exist?)

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## mv

 *kurly wrote:*   

> I know (and eix-test-obsolete confirms) that the lines are obsolete (in the sense that nothing will change if I remove them), but I leave them.

 

For such packages, I add  */etc/portage/package.nowarn/masks wrote:*   

> sys-fs/systemd in_mask
> 
> sys-fs/udev in_mask

  to suppress the eix-test-obsolete message, and I add a corresponding comment like  */etc/portage/package.mask/nowarn wrote:*   

> # I masked sys-fs/systemd and sys-apps/udev locally, since these have
> 
> # merged for no other reason than playing power games over users.
> 
> # current workaround: avoid the systemd nonsense and use sys-fs/eudev instead.
> ...

  so that I get a corrresponding reminder in case something pulls it in as a dependency. Note that 

```
eix -vle udev
```

 will show me this reminder, too. Note also that specifying only in_mask in /etc/portage/package.nowarn, eix-test-obsolete will still show me if there is another reason that this entry is redundant (e.g. for the case that udev/systemd is removed from the portage tree one day or that by mistake another entry for this package was added to /etc/portage/package.mask, I will still get informed about that with eix-test-obsolete).

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## kurly

mv:  Interesting, thank you for the knowledge/information.  Only correction I have to make to what you wrote is that systemd is in the sys-apps category, not sys-fs.  I really like eix, great stuff.

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