[Gnu-arch-users] file systems (was hurd foo)

[Thomas Lord]

Ludovic:
> You have a deceivingly narrow view of file systems.  How does a
> sysfs-like, or a proc-like file system relate to disk economics?  How
> does a distributed, peer-to-peer file system (e.g., AFS), relate to 
> disk economics?

Right now I am focused on what we could dub "local, physical file
systems".   Those are the ones where you have some closely connected
tertiary storage and the application interface exposes some of the
semantics of the memory hierarchy between here and there.   In that
context I'm interested in huge disks and beefy controllers -- although
there is so much in common between that and today's native file systems
that working in the space of virtual disks that reside in native files
is a good way to make progress.

Some of the semantic insights and implementation techniques I'm 
developing have relevance for global-scale P2P file systems and,
anyway, those global file systems are made up of edge nodes which
communicate and in some sense I'm working on those edge nodes.  I
have a path from where I plan to wind up to the global-scale P2P thing.
Stay tuned.

Proc-fs, sysfs, etc....  there may very well be some implementation
technique overlap between the implementation techniques I'm working
on and what one wants for parts or all of those but that is not my
focus.  The Hurd and Plan 9 stuff people are excited about that relates
to those strikes me as more about API design, both to clients and
to implementors.   I'm happy enough with a POSIX client-side API,
not especially concerned with a generic implementor-side API, and,
anyway, have quite enough on my small plate already and think those
issues are pretty much orthogonal.

So, I have my 1 bit file system running for read-only purposes.
I need to finish that, then do my 8kbit file system, then my
2^23 bit file system, and then finally the Posix file system
on that.  Forgive me for not spending a lot of hours on the 
interesting questions you raise at this particular moment.

-t