> File system companies like Transarc or Veritas could not exist if
> such were the case. File systems can be ported between different
> OS's, even though this isn't trivial. Developing a transactional
> file system from scratch is still a lot more work than porting an
> existing one.
Transarc may not be a good example here; many of the tricky bits of
AFS stay in userland, where it's much easier to port things.
It is still possible to port an entirely in-kernel filesystem without
_too_ much pain, though -- I'm doing it now for a filesystem based on
our NASD research that was originally written for OSF1. Apart from
some cache issues, the port process has been surprisingly painless.
--nat
-- nat lanza --------------------- research programmer, parallel data lab, cmu scs magus@cs.cmu.edu -------------------------------- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~magus/ there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths -- alfred north whitehead- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/