Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!ecsvax!dukeac!rsb
From: rsb@dukeac.UUCP (R. Scott Bartlett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Softlinks, xxx.device, and such
Keywords: One BIG filesystem
Message-ID: <1083@dukeac.UUCP>
Date: 5 Nov 88 04:08:17 GMT
References: <8810261744.AA28807@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <586@quintus.UUCP> <250@antares.UUCP>
Reply-To: rsb@dukeac.UUCP (R. Scott Bartlett)
Organization: Center for Demographic Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC
Lines: 50

In article <250@antares.UUCP> jms@antares.UUCP (joe smith) writes:
>In article <586@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes:
->Symbolic links could be implemented very simply as a generalization of
->a device.  If an individual file could somehow specify that a
->particular device driver be used to read it, instead of the one we'd
->expect, then symbolic links would be easy.  But so would lots of other,
->much more interesting things.
->
->We could write a zoo.device, which zoo files would declare as their
->device, and then we could do dir or list of them from the shell just as
->if they were directories.  We could copy files into and out of them.
->All this controlled by the device driver.
->
[neat stuff deleted]

This may sound silly or dumb, but (asbestos suit ready) how about using this
to have files from all sorts of physical devices in the same directory.  You
could have an honest to goodness root filesystem then.

->It may sound esoteric ...
->-Peter Schachte	>pds@quintus.uucp	>..!sun!quintus!pds

>The implementation used 30 of the reserved bytes in the inode to specify
>which watchdog program to activate when the file is accessed.  (This info
>is set by a new system call.)  A system-wide chief watchdog handles
>activation of individual watchdogs, which get commands via a special
>message passing system.  The watchdog can reject access, do the I/O
>itself, or request that the kernel do regular I/O.

How much system overhead does that scheme add?

>I would like to see something this flexible on the Amiga.  But do you
>realize what would happen if special files become the rule instead of
>the exception?  Instead of having files on disk they would all be objects
>with object type handlers.  Object-oriented OPerating System, OOOPS!

You want to talk about confusing your average Joe User:-)

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					rsb

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