From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Mar 31 19:30:06 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA28295 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 31 Mar 1998 19:30:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from parkplace.cet.co.jp (parkplace.cet.co.jp [202.32.64.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA28286 for ; Tue, 31 Mar 1998 19:30:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from michaelh@cet.co.jp) Received: from localhost (michaelh@localhost) by parkplace.cet.co.jp (8.8.8/CET-v2.2) with SMTP id DAA06400; Wed, 1 Apr 1998 03:27:25 GMT Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 12:27:25 +0900 (JST) From: Michael Hancock To: Scott Smyth cc: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Possibility of Porting BSD fs to Linux and vice-versa? Possible? In-Reply-To: <3520FBE2.B12EB7F7@mindspring.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 31 Mar 1998, Scott Smyth wrote: > I have been pondering the possibility of porting filesystems back and > forth between BSD and Linux. Could someone shed some light on whether > porting a BSD-supported filesystem to Linux or vice-versa is > fundamentally possible? I think it is, but I wonder if there is > something missing from my understanding. What are the issues involved? > Specifically, I have been looking at the Union FS, but more generally, > what porting issues are involved. Applications are easy from both > directions...what about a fs? By the way, I use both. It's possible, but far more work than porting user applications where there are standards that are exposed externally. It's kernel programming so the internals differ significantly. UnionFS doesn't stack well so it must consume a lot of internal kernel interfaces. Nullfs on the otherhand would be a lot easier. Regards, Mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message