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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Message-Id: <199608152143.OAA01492@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: Nightmare.
To: darrylo@hpnmhjw.sr.hp.com (Darryl Okahata)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 14:43:16 -0700 (MST)
Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@freefall.freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199608150659.AA203732347@hpnmhjw.sr.hp.com> from "Darryl Okahata" at Aug 14, 96 11:59:06 pm
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> > a) Write a filesystem which understands tar files natively.  Note: there may
> >    be a slight performance penalty for folks running with their root
> >    partitions mounted on a TARFS - perhaps we could note this somewhere.

Tar fs's have a problem:  O_APPEND.

>      While you're at it, how about tar-on-a-tape-FS?  There's an MSDOS
> driver that makes a tape drive look like a disk drive.  Why not have
> something similar for FreeBSD?  People can then use their tape drive as
> a disk.  Imagine having the root disk on tape!  "Infinite storage!"
> (1001 evil ;-})

Tape-as-mountable-FS requires a block addressable tape.  Most QIC
tapes do not qualify; most non-QIC helical scan tapes do not qualify.

If you have a TK50 or 9track or other DEC SCSI tape drive, this is
a possiblity (although remote).  But how useful would it be?

>      What about ZIPFS, or CPIOFS?  ZOOFS?  ARCFS?  LBRFS?

ZIPFS (a per file compression layer that uses gzip compression) already
exists as a senior project of two of John Heidemann's students at UCLA.

This, of course, assumes we fix our stacking vnode implementation to
better resemeble the FICUS design documents from which it was derived.

> Punch-tape-FS
> is possible, but it wouldn't be politically correct -- too many trees
> would get cut down.  ;-}

You can use mylar for punch tape.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.