Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!arc!steve From: steve@arc.UUCP (Steve Savitzky) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS? Summary: More file system ideas Keywords: GNU OS features kernel fun! Message-ID: <338@arc.UUCP> Date: 25 May 89 22:18:58 GMT References: <106326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4315@ficc.uu.net> Reply-To: steve@arc.UUCP (Steve Savitzky) Organization: Advansoft Research Corp, Santa Clara, CA Lines: 42 In article <4315@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <106326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (news) writes: >> What kinds of things should be in the GNU Kernel? ... >> >> File system: SysV vs Berkeley? Something better? > >The Berkeley directory structure is, ahem, baroque. 14 character file >names are too short. 255 is ridiculous. Just increase the size of >struct dir to 32 bytes and use 30 characters. .. Personally, I like 255-character filenames (well, maybe 127), for filenames like "comp.unix.wizards-more.stuff.about.GNU.OS". I HATE arbitrary limits, especially when they're small. The Macintosh :-( has a 32-character limit and I run up against it all the time. This is especially true when you have a browser (like dired) that lets you point to a file and open it instead of having to type the whole name. For networking I rather like the way Apollo handles a networked name space (it's about the ONLY thing to like about Apollo :-) -- Root is / and the network layer above it is //, so a complete pathname looks like (e.g.) //steve/usr/bin IMHO this is better than the way NFS does it (i.e. mounting filesystems in random places) -- everything is in exactly one place in the hierarchy. Also, device drivers and even file systems (meaning directory managers, not U*IX filesystems) ought to be ordinary processes that work by exchanging messages. This makes them loadable and unloadable at any time. In a network, you probably have to have some way of specifying whether a particular executable can run on any machine, or only on a specific one (e.g. the one your MIDI keyboard is attached to). -- Stephen Savitzky apple.com!arc!steve ADVANsoft Research Corp. (408)727-3357 4301 Great America Parkway #include Santa Clara, CA 95054 May the Source be with you!"