[Mageia-discuss] Making the serial port available to all

Mon Sep 17 14:44:35 CEST 2012

On 09/17/2012 07:48 AM, Renaud (Ron) Olgiati wrote:
+> I think I finally found a simpler solution:
+
+You should enter a bug report for this, as there is probably more going 
+on here than simple Unix permissions.
+
+When dinosaurs roamed the earth, Unix systems were multi-user, and it 
+was expected that the sysadmin would use the groups to parcel out device 
+permissions.  As Linux distros have moved more and more towards 
+single-user systems, permission mechanisms have changed.
+
+/dev devices are now created dynamically (as already pointed out) 
+according to rules supplied by the packages you install.  The theory is 
+that you only end up creating /dev nodes for devices you will actually 
+use, rather than the cast of thousands that used to be created 
+statically for every possible need.
+
+And access to common devices like CD drives and the audio system is (I 
+believe) done dynamically now as well, by packages like polkit and 
+systemd, which take their configuration from places other than /etc/group.
+
+As a USB tty is not a common device, it may well have fallen through the 
+cracks of these new mechanisms, and should probably be addressed there.
+