[ale] Obtaining stable /dev names with changing probe order

[tfreeman at intel.digichem.net]

That is a long enough subject line, but there is actually a little more.

I have installed Fedora Core 2 on a 1.8GHz Celeron on an experimental 
basis, and _basically_ have a stably running piece of computer. Of course, 
since it is experimental at this time, I decided to see if I could push 
both my knowledge envelope and the machine's capabilities. Thankfully, at 
this point all the hardware works, it is just keeping things organized in 
the face of my sloppy reality.

1) This computer doesn't have a floppy drive installed, so the kernel 
emits a notice when modprobing the floppy.ko module. Is there a way to 
tell the kernel/modprobe to just skip the floppy.ko module in the future? 
I'm thinking it is something like 
	"alias floppy off"
but I'm not finding confirmation/direction. How do I stop this behavior - 
other than installing a floppy drive which I don't want?

2) I have an Epson USB scanner (a Perfection 610) attached to this 
computer, and have rewritten the hotplug libusbscanner script to set the 
installed scanner to owner root, group scanner, as opposed to the original 
script which assigned the scanner to whomever owned the console. Off hand 
I cann't think of a major problem with my approach, while the 
distribution's approach leaves the scanner owned by root:root if the 
system is booted with the scanner attached. Having root:root with 
restrictive permissions makes it imposible to use the scanner as a normal 
user, and setting xsane suid causes xsane to die.

My question here is - is there a good reason to _not_ set the scanner to 
owner root, group scanner, and just make all my users members of group 
scanner? (I suppose group user would also work)

3) And finally the subject matter...
On this machine I have a Hauppaugh bttv based TV/radio card (model# 
forgotten and hopefully unimportant) which works fine as /dev/video0 if I 
don't get cute. If I add a usb webcam (a Kensington usually) after logging 
in, the usb device becomes /dev/video1. If, however, I reboot while the 
usb device is still plugged in, the usb device is detected first and 
becomes /dev/video0, leaving the TV card to become /dev/video1, which 
disrupts the userlevel software something aweful. Does anyone on this list 
know how to cause these devices to be found at a stable /dev/video# 
regardless of probe order? Two days of google & reading in the kernel docs 
has declined to enlighten me as yet. 


Thanks in advance.

-- 
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If you think Education is expensive
Try Ignorance
                   Author Unknown
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