Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 00:17:49 -0700 From: Christian Sung <cwsung@Sung.org> To: shimon@simon-shapiro.org, Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au> Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.ORG>, Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> Subject: Re: Heads up: block devices to disappear! Message-ID: <199806240717.AAA27134@vampire.sung.org> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.980624002752.shimon@simon-shapiro.org> References: <199806232113.FAA08470@spinner.netplex.com.au>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I **strongly** agree. I don't see a significant gain in removing block devices, yet it somehow seems that on the other hand we'd lose some degree of functionality in doing so. -christian At 12:27 AM 6/24/98 -0400, Simon Shapiro wrote: > >On 23-Jun-98 Peter Wemm wrote: > >... some excellent explanations deleted ... > >I still fail to see why these have to be removed, changed or modified in >any way. The savings in kernel size are minimal. The block device being a >``subset'' of the char device is one view. Another view is that the >character device is an extention to the block device. > >They are fundamentally different creatures. > >While I have rarely used the block device for anything but mounting >filesystems, I have used them more than once, when needing to do high speed >I/O to a partition, while still wanting the kernel to buffer the I/O, as >in userspace filesystems, storage managers for databases, and toehr such >creatures. > >I'd suggest we leave these alone. They hurt no one and come handly at >times. The contortions needed to implement block devices on top of >character devices without having block devices are hardly worth the fuss. > >Simon > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message > Christian W. Sung E-Mail: cwsung@Sung.org IS Management Consultant Website: www.Sung.org Senior UNIX Consultant Telephone (800) COM-UNIX "And the UNIX Guru typed 'rm -rf /*', and all that was before, including the Guru himself, became then null and void, and darkness came down upon the system and those who worshiped it in a rather ruthless way." -- C.W. Sung ================================================== PGP Key Fingerprint: F6E2 0372 F765 28B6 6D34 7DF4 A928 A7AF 59A0 04CD ================================================== To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199806240717.AAA27134>