I want to run a MSDOS filesystem as a root filesystem; it's a cheaper
filesystem for a floppy than ext2 is, and the kernels I build only
have support for MSDOS, iso9660, and ext2 in them. (And, even with
ext2, having a devfs (with major and minor numbers, of course; a devfs
without those is, I'm afraid, useless for me.) means I don't have to
carry around nearly as many devices in /dev for booting a install/
recovery floppy.)
You can do this already, but you have to use the umsdos filesystem when
you mount the MSDOS filesystem under Linux. This will emulate symbolic
links, device files, etc. as MS-DOS files. Note that the performance of
MS-DOS as a filesystem in general really sucks, since DOS was never
intended to be a multi-user, multi-tasking OS. But for people for whom
a single filesystem for DOS and Linux is more important than
performance, UMSDOS allows you do what you want. (But be careful what
you ask for; you may not like it when you get it.)
- Ted