File Systems

Tue Dec 16 13:15:34 GMT 2003 File Systems

A long time ago, I made a newsgroup post in which I suggested that file systems were an unnecessary part of an OS - that the disk should just be for swap. I felt that the whole OS design would be much cleaner, that programming would be easier, etc.


Hate these ads?

I got my head handed to me on a platter. I don't recall if I even bothered to defend myself from the chorus of derogatory remarks that mostly concerned themselves with my obvious lack of intelligence and ignorance of OS principles.

Oh well. The barrage didn't change my opinion any, but I shelved it as an idea too radical, or perhaps just too early.

This morning I was reminded of this by something in Eric Raymond's new book "The Art of Unix Programming" - this section: File Systems Might Be Considered Harmful. Huh? Turns out that at least some people were thinking about this long before I was: http://www.eros-os.org/. I haven't had the time yet to look very deeply at this, but they do have a lot of interesting concepts.



Comments /Blog/B724.html
CommentsBlog724 :
"A long time ago, I made a newsgroup post in which I suggested that file systems were an unnecessary part of an OS - that the disk should just be for swap. I felt that the whole OS design would be much cleaner, that programming would be easier, etc."

Dig up a Wang 2200: no filesystem. User written apps often were forced to do raw I/O to disk blocks and somehow keep it all organized. The 2200 did come with a very strange version of BASIC called BASIC-2, which lives on in Kerridge Computer's incredibly awful KCML interpreter for UNIX.

--BigDumbDinosaur

I owned a Wang back in the late 1970's. I kind of liked the Basic :-)

But that's not what I mean by no filesystem. The idea is that a filesystem is not necessary for the user or programmer to deal with - you deal with objects in virtual memory, that are moved to and from disk without you knowing or caring.

--TonyLawrence


Add your comments

Enter your email address for automatic notification of new posts here
(be sure to whitelist 'feedburner.com' if you use spam filtering)

Or use any RSS reader

Delivered by FeedBurner

cartoon
Forget the expense of flying to New England. Forget hotel and meals costs.
Installation and light training Boston and New England


Views for this page
Today This Week This Month This Year  Overall
2513363 2,784

Have you tried Searching this site?

Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates

This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.

Publishing your articles here

pavatar.jpg
More:
       - Blog
       - Unixware
       - Unix




Unix/Linux Consultants

Your ad here - $24.00 yearly!

http://www.loch-raven.com/Loch Raven provides consulting services for Linux, UNIX, SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, AIX, Solaris and FreeBSD systems. Services include: System administration, Backup and Disaster Recovery planning and implementation, Custom Shell Scripting, System Recovery, Remote Administration, Secure Remote Access configuration, Troubleshooting, System Migration and Windows/Linux/Unix integration with Samba. Loch Raven also provides web site hosting, solutions, and consulting along with Joomla CMS.


http://www.breakthru.com.au SCO (Openserver and Unixware), Unix, Solaris and Linux Consulting services including: Secure Networking Solutions; Linux based Firewalls; Backup Solutions; Secure Home to Office Network Setup; Phone, Remote and On-Site Support available - Satisfaction Guaranteed!


http://thatitguy.com Business networking servers, Linux and Unix experts. In business since 1997! Windows and Exchange to Samba and Scalix migration experts.









Change Congress


Related Posts

Publish your articles, comments, book reviews or opinions here!