Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 08:48:56 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, thiel@genevaonline.com Subject: Re: file systems Message-ID: <199810211548.IAA03947@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <199810210624.BAA27791@battleship.genevaonline.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 01:22:25 -0500
>From: Loren Thiel <thiel@genevaonline.com>
>Hi, I was wondering where I could find documentation on how the FreeBSD
>file system works.
Well, first, you might check the archives of freebsd-questions.
Also, I recommend McKusick, Bostic, Karels, and Quarterman, _The Design
and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System_ (Addison-Wesley,
1996); ISBN 0-201-54979-4.
Also, and this may be rather a subtlety, UNIX generally supports several
different kinds of filesystems. The above-referenced book discusses
filesystems generally in chaprt 7; the Berkeley FFS ("Fast Filesystem") in
chapter 8, and NFS ("Network Filesystem") in chapter 9.
As a historical note, the original system that Ken Thompson wrote, and
which, after time, acquired the name "UNIX" (credit/blame for which is
vested with Brian Kernighan by Dennis Ritchie), was apparently little
more than a file system and a scheduler:
Besides the financial agitations that took place in 1969, there
was technical work also. Thompson, R. H. Canaday, and Ritchie
developed, on blackboards and scribbled notes, the basic design
of a file system that was later to become the heart of UNIX.
...
Space Travel, though it made a very attractive game, served
mainly as an introduction to the clumsy technology of preparing
programs for the PDP-7. Soon Thompson began implementing a
paper file system (perhaps 'chalk file system' would be more
accurate) that had been designed earlier. A file system without
a way to exercise it is a sterile proposition, so he proceeded
to flesh it out with the other requirements for a working
operating system, in particular the notion of processes. Then
came a small set of user-level utilities: the means to copy,
print, delete, and edit files, and of course a simple command
interpreter (shell). Up to this time all the programs were
written using GECOS and files were transferred to the PDP-7 on
paper tape; but once an assembler was completed the system was
able to support itself. Although it was not until well into
1970 that Brian Kernighan suggested the name 'UNIX,' in a
somewhat treacherous pun on 'MULTICS,' the operating system we
know today was born.
-- D. M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the UNIX Time-Sharing
System" (from AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal,
Vol. 63, No. 8, October, 1984)
[I wouldn't normally do this, but it occurred to me that many "newbies"
might find it of interest.]
david
--
David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator
dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199810211548.IAA03947>