Mail Archives: opendos/1997/02/02/17:51:58
Once upon a time (on 2 Feb 97 at 9:35) mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on. said:
> > All true, but OpenDOS will *have to* stay compatible with FAT, and if we
> > want it to be *the best*, then we have to support FAT32 as well.
>
> Considering that there are emulators for:
> Atari 2600, Colecovision, Coleco ADAM, Vic-20, Commodore-64, Commodore
> plus 4, Pet, superpet, Nintendo (NES), Supernintendo, Sega Master
> system, Sega Genisis, Gameboy, gamegear, vectrex, Amiga, Macintosh,
> DOS, Windows, and virtually every other computer system & game
> console. And that these emulators are available for: PC's running
> DOS/Linux/other unix, Macintosh, Amiga, etc.
...OpenDOS (soon ;-))
> It just shows that there are some VERY dedicated programmers out
> there, and if they want something, THEY WILL PROGRAM IT!! I'm sure
> you will agree with this one eh? I think that not only will we have
> FAT32 & ext2 in OpenDOS, but that we will have EVERYTHING else that
> people have mentioned that they want.
Can you see any other possibility? ;-) When we have the sources, nothin' can
stop us. The only thing that worries me is the mess that may result from that
if everything is not well coordinated. I mean we should know *exactly* on
what do Caldera programmers work, what is scheduled for the nearest future,
what is available for volunteers etc.
> Strange that arguments crop up on some of these discussions eh? I
> mean we're going to have the source code! That means that ALL is
> possible! I'm not worried at all because I know that I only need
> mention a useful feature once, and either tomorrow someone will have
> added it, or else I will myself! (sources released of course)
And that's wonderful!
> Boy I can't wait until we get those sources eh Mark?
Yyyyup! And the cherry on top, please! ;=-) Yeah, I'm getting paranoid about
checking this mailing list and Caldera's site to see whether they've already
gave some sources away... ;-)
> > Nothing prevents from writing a driver as soon as the sources are out. I'm
> > sure that more than 80% of users will switch to ext2fs after a while.
>
> Oh, I certainly agree. We wont NEED programs like speeddisk then!
> EXT2 is fantastic! Waste's virtually no space at all (compared to
> FAT), and is very rugged. It is much better than any M$ filesystems.
I'd add only two features to ext2fs - (1) a built-in encryption of data (not
necessarily on the C2 level, but it'd be very useful sometimes), (2)
compression-on-demand (sorta that on NTFS)
> The only comparable ones being HPFS (OS/2) and possibly NTFS (NT).
Agreed. These two are really good.
> The way I see it, the only problems of including filesystem support
> for any of the new modern filesystems from an application's
> viewpoint are:
>
> 1) Long filenames
> 2) Symlinks
> 3) Drive letters / device names
>
> A SINGLE API could be written to accomodate all of these problems for
> once and for all. (kinda a IFS layer). This layer would report to
Exactly. An structure-independent layer. But I think it should be done on the
IOCTL level.
> DOS programs the proper filenames regardless of the underlying
> filesystem (FAT32/ext2/HPFS/NTFS/minix/whatever)
I think that OpenDOS should stick to the usual DOS notation for drives,
filenames etc. (VFAT compatible to be precise) on the application API
level and the specific driver should worry about translating the
filename/path to its own format. Perhaps, DOS high-level API should also
recognize network notation.
> I'm sure it will come to this though.
No doubt about that!
> > able to run them under X emulation lib for OpenDOS, then a *decent*
> > operating system that claims its compatible with its predecessors, should
> > support their native features, in our case all flavors of FAT.
>
> I agree that ALL existing filesystems should be available under
> OpenDOS, however why couldn't you install Corel Draw on an ext2 drive?
> Or even a plain old FAT drive?
But Windoze 95 won't work on ext2fs or plain FAT - at least for now.
> If IFS support is added...xxxxx Let me start over again. WHEN IFS
> support is added to OpenDOS, it will also be available under '95 no?
> I'm sure that someone will add it to '95 before too long anyways.
> Granted it may be a hack or a DLL or whatever but someone will do it.
Sure nuff!
> Perhaps M$ will lose so much money that they will include support for
> ext2 just to get back some customers! :o)
Hope not!
> We'll be laughing about this in 5 years time anyways. :o)
Right ;-))
P.S. Shouldn't we move with this discussion to OPENDOS-developer? ;-)
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A thousand wasted hours a day just to feel my heart
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