[ros-general] filesystems / links / file types

[Vizzini]

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 13:01, robert K. wrote:
> Vizzini wrote:
> >>Q: Can I help programming installable file system drivers?
> >>A: Yes, there's lots of work to do around IFS-drivers. It's however
> >>very hard to program. I like to say that programming dirvers is hard
> >>but programming file system dirvers is the king's discipline. If you
> >>are a real kernel hacker, come to our maling list and anounce
> >>yourself.
> > 
> > 
> > I am also happy to point you in the right direction.  There is much to
> > be done, as I said.
> ???

I still have to backport the Captive stuff into our tree.  It's not
directly portable, so it's going to be a (very interesting) pile of
work.  I'd put this up there near PnP support in level of effort.

> > 
> > 
> > Just to be precise: what SEH problem are you referring to?
> 
> Borland or we have no SEH compliant compiler. I include that.

Support for drivers compiled with Microsoft compilers is not a problem,
other than some minor OS bugs that will get worked out during the
Captive merge.  We're not really blocked on SEH at all, at the moment. 
We may never be, either; GPL doesn't require that you do NOT give out
binaries, only that you accompany them with source.  If the thing
requires MSVC to build SEH-enabled binaries, that's not the end of the
world.  There's also nothing wrong with manually building the SEH frames
during coding - it's just a lot more tedious than letting the compiler
do it.

Also, FWIW: Borland owns the most often-cited SEH patent; I'd say they
probably have an SEH-compatible compiler.

>  
> > I don't think this is true any more; last I heard, there was an NTFS
> > implementation for Linux that could write.  Regardless, the big problems
> > here will revolve around 100% bug-compatibility with the MS code.
> 
> Yes, it can write. But only on the same clusters. no reallocation is 
> possible nor deletion of files. Or using the MS-ifs through a wrapper.

I see.

 -Vizzini