Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 18 Nov 1999 13:32:46 -0500 (EST) | From | Alexander Viro <> | Subject | Re: Getting system info from the kernel |
| |
On 17 Nov 1999, Nix wrote:
> Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu> writes: > > > Most likely 2.4 will keep compatibility symlinks, but even that is not > > guaranteed. If k3wl krapplications will break - too bad for them. > > That's the first time I've ever heard free(1) called `k3wl'.
<shrug> keeping free(1), etc. happy is _not_ a problem. Now, something that coredumps 'cause it got -ENOENT... I'ld say what I think of it, but you can do it yourself, don't you? Look through ktop source, just keep the barf-bag ready. And then I did, erm, associative search on DN. Results were not amusing.
> > FWIC > > the rest is fair game. > > Certain bits, like /proc/meminfo, pretty much need compatibility > symlinks.
Oh, sure.
> > Again, it _will_ change. > > We're nicking /kern from FreeBSD? :)
kernfs is more or less the same as /proc/sys. We can make /proc/sys a configurable symlink if so desired (e.g. mount option for procfs), but _that_ is the last of our problems.
Let me put it that way: there is an area where nobody has decent (let alone portable) interfaces. Doing it _right_ would be nice and if we will get a clean filesystem-based solution it will not take much to take nullfs and roll the patches to *BSD. If some *BSD folks will fill the skeleton - fine, if not - their business. But *BSD lacks the thing just as we do. libkvm sucks too.
Decent namespace will fix most of our problems - we already have fs-based solution, but it's rather messy right now. Internal interfaces are getting more or less straight (we still have a crapload of interesting races, but they will be the next stage; most of intimate knowledge of procfs guts is gone from the rest of the kernel and that makes procfs fixes possible). But the namespace _is_ a mess and implementations of procfs methods are, should we say it, sometimes unorthodoxal (check what drivers/nubus/proc.c does. Or ISDN stuff. Or wanrouter). Ideally I'ld see more or less common format and a tree organised along the lines of buses hierarchy (kernel being the replacement for nexus ;-). But namespace stuff will go when we'll have the worst interface problems fixed and will have a list of animals that want to be there at all.
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |