Tomasz Rola wrote:
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> On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, David Golden wrote:
>
> >
> > > And Unix filesystems were NOT designed for removable media.
> >
> > (LKML cc'd because this rant *might* be coherent enough to explain it
> > to Linux kernel hackers)
> >
> > The main problem I have with the Linux filesystems is this:
<snippink>
> As a former Amiga user and now yet another Linux user, I probably know
> what you mean. Well, I'm not a kernel engineer but maybe it could be done
> with a virtual fs like /dev - so that
>
> 1. /dev/ is not polluted
> 2. /mnt and other real disk space is not polluted
Well, I am neither a former Amiga user nor a kernel developer (but
GNU/Linux user), so I understood MOST of what you two said. ;-) Coming
from a user-angle, though, the main problem with the Linux file system
"style", for lack of a better word, is the unified file tree.
What? The unified file tree? Yes, the unified file tree. The idea
that the silver plastic round thing you just put into the front of the
computer is accessed.... "under" the "storage" in the computer? Does
that, conceptually, metaphorically, make sense? No, it doesn't. Nor
does the need to explicitly "mount" and "umount" (the n having gotten
lost while moving from one office to another a few years back) a floppy
disk. This is one place where, I hate to say it, drive letters a la
DOS/Windows (or some other top-level identifier) are significantly
better from a user perspective.
--
Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42
[email protected] ICQ: 6817012
-- "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving isn't for you." :-)
On 27 June 2002 00:38, Larry Garfield wrote:
> What? The unified file tree? Yes, the unified file tree. The idea
> that the silver plastic round thing you just put into the front of the
> computer is accessed.... "under" the "storage" in the computer? Does
> that, conceptually, metaphorically, make sense? No, it doesn't.
"Programmatically" it makes a lot of sense.
Do you see any fundamental difference in
A:\dir\dir
B:\dir\dir
and
/mnt/auto/fd0/dir/dir
/mnt/auto/fd1/dir/dir
from user POV?
> Nor
> does the need to explicitly "mount" and "umount" (the n having gotten
> lost while moving from one office to another a few years back) a floppy
> disk. This is one place where, I hate to say it, drive letters a la
> DOS/Windows (or some other top-level identifier) are significantly
> better from a user perspective.
You can live without mount/umount. Automounter is your friend.
It is theoretically possible to teach filesystems to sync dirty
data to removable media ASAP and to cope with diskettes being removed without
umount ("no disk? do we have diryt buffers? no? ok, implicit umount").
Who's volunteering to do that is an open question. :-)
I live with automounter with short umount timeout.
--
vda
No, to be fair, that could be easily emulated with mount points such as
/HD, /CF-card, /SD-card, and so forth. But one issue in this all is to
even hide the file system for the end users, and only indicate the
location for the data, i.e. 'this picture is on the SD card you just
plugged in', and so forth. --Kent
On Wednesday, June 26, 2002, at 07:38 PM, Larry Garfield wrote:
> What? The unified file tree? Yes, the unified file tree. The idea
> that the silver plastic round thing you just put into the front of the
> computer is accessed.... "under" the "storage" in the computer? Does
> that, conceptually, metaphorically, make sense? No, it doesn't. Nor
> does the need to explicitly "mount" and "umount" (the n having gotten
> lost while moving from one office to another a few years back) a floppy
> disk. This is one place where, I hate to say it, drive letters a la
> DOS/Windows (or some other top-level identifier) are significantly
> better from a user perspective.
Larry Garfield <[email protected]> said:
[...]
> Well, I am neither a former Amiga user nor a kernel developer (but
> GNU/Linux user), so I understood MOST of what you two said. ;-) Coming
> from a user-angle, though, the main problem with the Linux file system
> "style", for lack of a better word, is the unified file tree.
Right. Something like mtools(1) for isofs would be nice...
--
Horst von Brand [email protected]
Casilla 9G, Vin~a del Mar, Chile +56 32 672616