Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!xadmx!rbj@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov
From: rbj@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov (Root Boy Jim)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?
Message-ID: <19915@adm.BRL.MIL>
Date: 7 Jun 89 16:55:25 GMT
Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL
Lines: 66

? From: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@eci386.uucp>

? In article <209@sopwith.UUCP> snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy) writes:
? > In article <1989May26.224924.5293@eci386.uucp> woods@eci386.UUCP (That's ME) writes:
? > 
? > | Second, a leading '//' with a special meaning is a tremendous KLUDGE!
? > | It's even worse than "machine_A:/"!
? > 
? > Nope, sorry, // is a small kludge, and machine_A:/ is the tremendous kludge.
? > Your syntax attaches special to another character.  With the // syntax,
? > the special chars remain limited to / and null.

? I see '//' as a huge kludge, 'cause it special-cases the meaning
? of two consecutive slashes when they appear at the beginning of a
? line.  This goes directly against the understood meaning of
? consecutive slashes (i.e. scrunch them into one slash).

Agreed. It is too easy to generate consecutive `/'s by accident,
and I would prefer that they map to just one as they do now.

? The "mach_A:/" at least identifies this syntax as a kludge (to the
? eye, and the machine).  Besides, using a second character is
? better than overloading an already used one.

I also agree here, but see below.

? Of course I don't like either syntax.

Nor do I.

? I want to be able to put
? directory hierarchies anywhere I please, whether they are on a
? remote machine, or local.  That's part of what network tranparency
? for filesystems is all about.  The meaning of "mounting a
? filesystem" should be exactly the same, be it a local mount of a
? physically local disk, or a remote mount of a filesystem
? advertised to the network.

I disagree here. I feel that they should be mounted in a standard place.
We use NFS here, and are considering the following scheme.

Every file should be accessible via /<host>/<path>, where <path> is
the pathname as it would appear on <host>. Local filesystems can be
remounted on /<name_of_local_host>/<path>.

The problem here is that it is not a good idea to mount fs's directly
under root, so that in actuality, machine `foo's /usr is mounted on
/net/foo/usr and /foo is a symbolic link to /net/foo.

Another problem is symbolic links. To work everywhere, they must be
relative. There are times when you might want absolute ones, however.

I feel that Sun has only partially addressed this problem. They seem
to have some kind of generalized scheme in which pathnames could be
predicted, but it seems somewhat inverted. All the home directorys
are mounted under /home/<host>, which seems a bit backwards to me.
Other directorys I have seen mentioned are /export. My recollection
is fuzzy on exactly what their scheme is. Comments?

? 						Greg A. Woods

? woods@{{utgpu,eci386,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET}
? +1-416-443-1734 [h]  +1-416-595-5425 [w]		Toronto, Ontario CANADA

	Root Boy Jim is what I am
	Are you what you are or what?