From owner-freebsd-current Tue Sep 16 22:05:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA15396 for current-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:05:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sendero-ppp.i-connect.net (sendero-ppp.i-Connect.Net [206.190.143.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id WAA15366 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:04:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 2481 invoked by uid 1000); 17 Sep 1997 05:05:20 -0000 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.2-alpha [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:05:20 -0700 (PDT) Organization: Atlas Telecom From: Simon Shapiro To: Alex Subject: Re: Does this idea have merit? Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi Alex; On 17-Sep-97 you wrote: > > > On Sat, 13 Sep 1997, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > > > In message <199709131739.MAA00426@watcher.isl.net>, Daniel Ortmann > > writes: > > > > >On the other hand, maybe I'm missing something basic. Is there > > >some other way to find out (without forking a /bin/ps): > > > > cat /proc/*/status | grep ... ? > > > > Extending the tree in procfs is not for the faint ... > > It probably is, but one of the things I liked about Linux was the > ability > to get loads of information about certian drivers by checking the proc > fs. > How hard would it be to impliment something like that under procfs or > say > under something else? The problem with Linux's /proc is that it is very much a hack. The interface is simply too complex and bloats the kernel too. I implemented, for the DPT driver, a much simpler mechanism, write a command into /dev/dptX (such as ``echo -n "foo" > /dev/dpt0'') and then read form /dev/dptX (such as ``cat < /dev/dpt0''). Gives you the same result, 1/10 or less of the code. I ended up tearing most of it out; Still took too much code in the kernel. In the newest DPT driver, you can acomplish the same with an IOCTL and a trivial utility. Some of our staff really liked the read/write interface. Some could not stand it. Same could be said about /proc; It may be good for certain things, but less for others. I find the fs semantics in the kernel too complex, butt this is just me being an old fart :-) --- Sincerely Yours, (Sent on 16-Sep-97, 21:56:25 by XF-Mail) Simon Shapiro Atlas Telecom Senior Architect 14355 SW Allen Blvd., Suite 130 Beaverton OR 97005 Shimon@i-Connect.Net Voice: 503.643.5559, Emergency: 503.799.2313