Disk Drives vs. Mount Points

[rowa]

Windows-versions inherit the odd system of disk drive letters from the old CP/M http://www.gaby.de/ecpm.htm (nearly Stone Age).

Unix-versions (Solaris, Linux, BSD, BeOS, MacOS X, NextStep, ...) don't have this nonelastic system of drive letters for addressing. The file system is here independent of the hardware. The hardware (disks, floppies, cdroms, ram, ...) cant be mounted via mountpoints in the file system.

ReactOS have to use the odd system of disk drive letters to be compatible with Windows, OS2 and DOS.

But I think it is possible to use moint point too. DOS have the JOIN-command for this:
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/def ... rm=DOSJoin

Windows XP have the GUI diskmgmt.msc for this. I don't no if XP have a command line tool like the Unix "mount" (I don't use Windows normally).


Will ReactOS have the capability for using moint point?

Is it possible to use this capability in the start process like the /etc/fstab in Unix?

[w3seek]

yes it definitely will.

[rowa]

yes it definitely will.

Sounds good.

So it will be possible to create a partition with ReactOS and mount existing partitions with Windows, Linux or DOS?

Will it be possible to mount partitions readonly?
Maybe for programm files to keep these virus free.

Will ReactOS have a external partition for swap?

Wiil ReactOS have (hard, symbolic) links too?

[SirTalon]

Will it be possible to mount partitions readonly?
Maybe for programm files to keep these virus free.

I think that will be a yes, probably most of the Linux/*nix mount options will be supported.

Will ReactOS have a external partition for swap?

I believe it will support both a swap file, and a swap partition.

Wiil ReactOS have (hard, symbolic) links too?

Hard links will depend on the filesystem (don't know about FAT, but NTFS supports it, don't know of any *nix filesystem that doesn't). I don't know if symbolic links are a filesystem feature, or an OS feature so I can't answer that question, but I figure ReactOS will support them.

[Delfi]

why on the earth does everyone want linux and unix features in
reactos that is windos clone that doesn't even have enough stable
subsystem to be able to reproduce at at least 1/10 of windows functionality..

[niteice]

They're recreating a partially POSIX-compliant OS, why not finish the job?

[ea]

They're recreating a partially POSIX-compliant OS, why not finish the job?

That POSIX-compliant subsystem looks like Windows 2000. In Windows 2000, on NTFS volumes, you can create hard links and symbolic links (to directories and whole logical volumes only).

The problem is that Microsoft does not provide such a useful command line utility named "ln".

For symbolic links, you can use JUNCTION.EXE from http://www.sysinternals.com/ .

For hard links, see, for example, http://www.bearcanyon.com/tools/

[e7]

I hope all filesystem-drivers will be able to accept a "/" and|or "\"... If a software will open c:\temp\file.tmp, c:/temp/file.tmp, /temp/file.tmp ReactOS or the filesystem driver will open the same file... If the filesystem supports mountpoints to (like NTFS), we can address d:\ something like /etc/d/ or anything like in *nix

[Pentiumforever]

the windows explorer can use / for directorys he change it automatically to \

[DocPheniX]

i think that using mount points instead of drive letters will scare off a ton of new users.. i mean really .. the reason most people use windows is because its easy, and lets face it .. mount points are confusing as hell for people that have never used a *nix os. i agree that it would be cool ... but to force it on everyone is a bad idea. make it an option for advanced users in the control pannel, because really .. thats what it is.. an advanced option.

[Dr. Fred]

I think mount points are much easier then Windows Device Letters.

But I agree that the standard installation should use them because most user got used to them.

[Pentiumforever]

no i think for a totaly newbi are drive letters much eaiser and for one they never used mount opoints its realy hard when he is forced to use it!

Why you think works some dists with auto mountert?

[Dr. Fred]

Auto mounted mount are mount points, too.

[ea]

I hope all filesystem-drivers will be able to accept a "/" and|or ""... If a software will open c:\temp\file.tmp, c:/temp/file.tmp, /temp/file.tmp ReactOS or the filesystem driver will open the same file... If the filesystem supports mountpoints to (like NTFS), we can address d:\ something like /etc/d/ or anything like in *nix

In NT and in ReactOS, as they both have an object based kernel, there is a single system name space. Each environment subsystem (Windows, POSIX, OS/2...) generates a logical view of that namespace for the client processes. For instance, the well known "disk letters" do not actually exist per se: they are symbolic links in the system name space.

Win32 system calls accept both / and \ as separators in a path. Native calls (those available loading NTDLL.DLL) accept only \, because NTDLL.DLL offers no logical view of the system name space (which uses \ as separator).