Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:16:36 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: peters@staidan.qld.edu.au (Peter Stubbs) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: reading ufs from OS/2 Message-ID: <199602072116.OAA06400@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <4C7B802361D@aidan.staidan.qld.edu.au> from "Peter Stubbs" at Feb 7, 96 11:08:16 am
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> I've just seen an announcement in comp.os2.announce of a free .ifs for > OS/2 to be able to read & write to linux partitions. > > QUOTE > --------- > ext2-os2.ifs is a file system driver that allows OS/2 to seamlessly > access Linux native partitions (ext2fs partitions) in both read and > write modes. Once installed, Linux partitions appear as standard OS/2 > drive letters, one per Linux partition. > ---------- > ENDQUOTE > > How alien is the linux file system from the FBSD one? Would it work? > It would be nice if it did! This is an interesting application. To accomplish this with the BSD code, you would need to: 1) Abstract the BSD dependencies from the file system interface (I have submitted some patches to do this). Such an abstraction makes the BSD code more closely resemble the Heideman Thesis description: integration of the UCLA FIcus code into the 4.4BSD code was, at beast, a hack-job. 2) Abstract the mount process from the BSD hierachy model (I have submitted some patches to do this). Such an abstration is very useful for implementation of transient resources for mobile computing even in a BSD environment: Syquest, ZIP, and other removable media which may "arrive", floppies and CDROM, PCMCIA FlashRAM and disks, docking stations, and intermittent network links (IR/WaveLAN/Etc.), and so on. 3) Port the Heidemann framework and BSD kernel environemnt support to the target OS (a team of three of us has ported the Heidemann framework, after the BSD architectural patches to Windows 95 -- OS/2 would be less difficult since this has been done, but also less lucrative; we consider the port of the framework to be proprietary, but are considering exposing the interface to allow you to provide your own VPE's [Heidemann file systems] for Windows 95). You could probably do the port to OS/2 in 2-3 man months (assuming you have my patches and noting that the OS/2 documentation is both more complete and more correct than the Windows 95 documentation). 4) Compile and load modules. In Windows94, this is accomplished by building the modules as VPE's and using the PELDR interface to load them into a framework consisting of the modified Heidemann code and a BSD kernel emulation environment (mostly VMM.VXD consumer code providing a BSD VM consumer interface for the file system "bottom end"). With appropriate changes to path disoloution code (also part of the patches I have submitted: changes are made to each FS regarding cn_pnbuf), this would immediately buy you FFS, LFS, CD9660, VFATFS, NFS clint, SMBFS client (when it is released), NetWare client (when it is released), BSD EXT2FS, UNION, LOOPBACK, and read-only NTFS support for your OS/2 box. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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