Re: Moving away from /dev ?
> > > Would there be any interest in having GNU Mach and Hurd move way from
> > > /dev into having a kernel-provided translator that exports kernel symbols
> > > including devices?
> > My main concern with this is that some Linux progs (eg sound) will look
> > for /dev/audio, /dev/cdrom and so on...
>
> Personally, I think shouldn't be a concern of ours, for both technical
> and aesthetic reasons
>
> First, the technical: Should you wish to make your machine look like
> a linux box, it would not be too hard to create a translator that
> overlayed a virtual /dev/, /etc/, /usr/bin, and other forms of unix
> brokenness to create a "virtual linux environment" - thus it is
> unneccessary to force us to use the old, broken syntax to do things.
>
> Secondly, the aesthetic: Slavish emulation of linux, which is but an
> emulation of unix, will cause us to create something like win3.1 -
> a big hideous hack on top of a system simply not designed to handle it.
Yes; I agree with this, but ATM we have a vast pile of apps to port - and
if there is some support of /dev/foo, then it saves us having to rewirte
chunks of apps that need /dev/foo: sure there may well be a better way to
implement things like CD players, but a port of the linux ones is
probably a quick fix (and I would suggest that the work spent on writing a
CD player couldbe better spent elsewhere...)
Matthew
--
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo
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Selwyn College Computer Support
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Debian GNU/Hurd - love at first byte
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