Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcso!hpfcdc!rml
From: rml@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Bob Lenk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: 20GBYTE Optical on Diskless 340 ?
Message-ID: <5570391@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Mar 90 01:55:04 GMT
References: <1990Mar13.234341.5720@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 22

In article <2600@quirkc> tsuia@spock (Alan Tsui) writes:
> >Can't be done, yet.  Diskless clients can't have locally mounted file
> >systems.  They can have swap disk, raw device access, but no block-I/O.
>
>	Is it really that hard to do?  Sun can do that 12 months ago!
>	Would that be a marketing issue or technical issue?

SunOS and HP-UX have a very different design for diskless.  HP-UX is
designed around a cluster of machines sharing a common file system
hierarchy.  One of the advantages is that the entire cluster is
administered largely as a single system.  SunOS is designed as
individual machines each mounting a set of file systems (including the
root file system) over the network.  One advantage is that file systems
local to each machine fit more simply into this model.

Supporting local file systems is not *that* hard, but it is not trivial.
The choice to work on other things instead can be considered a marketing
choice.

		Bob Lenk
		rml@hpfcla.hp.com
		hplabs!hpfcla!rml