Daemon's Advocate article

Matthew Dillon dillon at apollo.backplane.com
Mon Mar 1 09:30:57 PST 2004


    I think, at leaste in regards to vinum, that this
    points to the need for userland VFS and DEV API's.
    Anything that does not require a traditional interrupt
    to operate should be able to operate in userland.

    Insofar as BSD's being relegated to R&D, I'm not sure
    how applicable that is to our future.  Even for linux
    the main driver of the OS is in the application space.
    Since the application space is primarily open source,
    it comes down to solving the ease of use and package management
    issues, and putting together a slam-bang flexible, scaleable,
    and robust core that people feel comfortable with.

    Hey, here's an idea... using the VFS wrapper idea our 
    'ports' system could create a namespace that makes everything
    appear to be preinstalled.  So instead of CDing somewhere and
    typing make, or running an apt-get type of utility, you would
    simply run the program you want to run and our package manager
    would download and install it on the fly.

				-Matt





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