Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 15:27:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: Kirk McKusick <mckusick@flamingo.McKusick.COM> Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The eventual fate of BLOCK devices. Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910121522180.15048-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <199910122014.NAA15822@flamingo.McKusick.COM>
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(CC list trimmed to 'freebsd-arch') On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Kirk McKusick wrote: > I would like to take a step back from the debate for a moment and > ask the bigger question: How many real-world applications actually > use the block device interface? I know of none whatsoever. All the > filesystem utilities go out of their way to avoid the block device > and use the raw interface. Does anyone on this list know of any > programs that need/want the block interface? If there are none, or > only very obscure ones, then it seems pointless to waste any kernel > code supporting them. Indeed it will clean up a good deal of code > to get rid of them. The question is, "How much code will it clear up?" The opinions differ. and, just because we can't point out one at the moment doesn't mean that there aren't any. There is also the issue of Posix standards etc. is a 'Unix' supposed to have two kinds of devices? the standards certainly define block and character devices. might a process use block devices as a mething of allowing caching between multiple co-operating processes? > > Kirk McKusick > Julian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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