Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!wuarchive!udel!cis.udel.edu
From: pezely@cis.udel.edu (Daniel Pezely)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: BSD file systems (Re: Minix reading/writing non-Minix file systems)
Message-ID: <33133@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 11 Oct 90 14:40:58 GMT
Sender: usenet@ee.udel.edu
Organization: R+D Cowboys, HITL, Seattle & CSL, U of Delaware
Lines: 47
Nntp-Posting-Host: braindamaged.cis.udel.edu

>First of all, BSD and SunOS are the same animals with respect to file system
>structure.  All SunOS is basically is BSD Unix 4.3 with some of Sun's code
>added. 

You mentioned a BSD book later on.  I think I know which one, and it's
very much worth reading.
	_Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System_
	(Addison-Wesley, 1989)

> The Minix file system was
>designed to get the point across about general Unix file system structure with
>the common denominators being the superblock, free list, and inode table.

Since Minix is meant to be a learning tool, how about if the
high-performance OS courses got involved too?  There's lots and lots
of grad students around these days...  I'm not a grad student, but I'm
willing to learn more about such things.  

Even implementing a BSD file system with multiple threads will be
worth it even if we forget about the idea of physically moving drives
around.

You mentioned implementing NFS.  Is anyone working on this?  My
machine is not on a network, so it wont do much for me yet.  Anyone
else have some free time?  :-)

I see your point for using a tape drive rather than lugging disk
drives around, but for those on a very tight budget...  never mind.
(yes, I know that tape drive prices are falling.)

>  Where do you draw the line?  Where will Minix stop? 
>Or do you want to make a universal file system read utility that will decipher
>the file system you have on a given disk and allow you to read any given file
>system from a floppy?  See my point?

Why stop?  GNU's freeware OS isn't anywhere to be seen, and the price
of Minix makes it cheap enough that it is accessible to the masses.  I
think that once the 386 protected mode version of the kernel was
announced, that may have attracted more people to using Minix rather
than something else.  Even if there are problems with the 386 version,
those bugs will be worked out soon enough.

-cowboy dan

-- 
R+D Cowboys:	HITL, Seattle				CSL, U Delaware
		Pezely@hitl.VRnet.washington.edu	Pezely@udel.edu