Re: [ros-kernel] Re: File system struct - ENOUGH ALREADY

[Casper H. <ch...@us...>]

tir, 2002-04-30 kl. 04:20 skrev KJK::Hyperion:
> At 02.14 30/04/2002, you wrote:
> >I think you give up to easily. One problem is that you are trying to turn 
> >ReactOS itself into a POSIX environment, instead of taking advantage of 
> >the ReactOS subsystem abillity.
> 
> My point of view, which I won't try to defend any further (at least for a 
> very long time), is to mix the best of all subsystems. The Win32 "standard" 
> for filesystem structure is hardly the "best". Drive letters are hardly the 
> best way to identify devices.

The /dev directory on my Mandrake Linux look like this:

crw-------    1 root     root      10,  10 aug 30  2001 adbmouse
crw-------    1 root     audio     14,  14 aug 30  2001 admmidi0
crw-------    1 root     audio     14,  30 aug 30  2001 admmidi1
...
crw-rw----    1 root     disk      27,  17 aug 30  2001 zqft1
crw-rw----    1 root     disk      27,  18 aug 30  2001 zqft2
crw-rw----    1 root     disk      27,  19 aug 30  2001 zqft3

5699 entries! Why is this way so much better than the NT way, where
drivers register device objects with the object manager?

Also the root directory on the Mandrake Linux has the following entries:

bin
boot
dev
etc
home
initrd
lib
lost+found
mnt
opt
proc
root
sbin
swap
tmp
usr
var

Why is this a better layout than that on my Windows NT partition?

Documents & Settings
Program Files
Windows

And finally, why shouldn't I be able to assign my CD-ROM a drive letter?

Is

/mnt/cdrom

better than

D:

for accessing my CD-ROM?

Your arguments:
"The Win32 "standard" for filesystem structure is hardly the "best".
Drive letters are hardly the best way to identify devices."
are not good enough for me to agree with you.

 Multiple roots are bad, they are the 
> inheritance of an era (DOS) when there was no distinction between the 
> operating system and the user interface, but we don't need them anymore

Sure we need them. You talk of DOS as if we did not learn from it and it
is not usable when really, DOS has survived for many years. Consumers
are used to have drive letters. Changing them will cause confusion. If
ReactOS is ever going to reach Windows users, the project must focus on
the users.

> One more thing: NT is NOT a microkernel, so please stop considering it 
> such. It may make sense to have special filesystems (think /proc) 
> implemented by subsystems, ON A MICROKERNEL SYSTEM, that will surely 
> provide facilities to implement system calls as IPC calls. But, alas, NT 
> isn't, so it's just not going to work. At least, not to the extent you'd hope

Yes, NT is not a microkernel. NT has microkernel principals in it's
design, but it is not a true microkernel because it is comercially
impractical. AKAIK, no comercial operating systems implement a true
microkernel design. Since someone claim that MS says it is, I would be
glad if someone would post a link to some official statement from MS,
because I have never heard them say this. The only information I have
about this is from Inside Microsoft Windows 2000 published by Microsoft
Press.