X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Message-ID: <450EAD14.7050600@cygwin.com> Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:28:36 -0400 From: "Larry Hall (Cygwin)" Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060727 Fedora/1.5.0.5-1.fc4.remi Thunderbird/1.5.0.5 Mnenhy/0.7.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: Cygwin filesystem References: <450E86B4 DOT 000001 DOT 06684 AT mfront8 DOT yandex DOT ru> In-Reply-To: <450E86B4.000001.06684@mfront8.yandex.ru> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Francis Rossi wrote: > Hello, > > I wonder whether there are plans about creating a special filesystem for > Cygwin. I think it would be a very useful thing, for practical reasons. The > problem with the folder Cygwin is installed to is that when you're looking > for some files on your hard disk, that directory takes a lot of time in the > search because of dozens of thousands files, especially in /usr. Another > issue is deleting the Cygwin installation, it can take hours, for the same > reason. I think it could be resloved by creating a separate partition for > /usr and placing it into a separate file with virtual filesystem like on > VMWare or Bochs. When Cygwin is started this partition would be mounted > like Windows disks and deleting it would last as long as one click. No one on this list has vocalized such a plan AFAIK. If disk access times for large directories are your targeted goal, your solution would require the use of some non-native file-system type to support this. You would need a Windows file-system driver to be able to manipulate the new file-system efficiently. It's my opinion that implementing this as a separate partition would be too complex or time-consuming for the typical Cygwin user, thus negating any potential benefits. The alternative may be to use a file on the current file-system to bridge this gap. But regardless, creating a file-system driver that plays well with all Windows constructs is not a small task. Just look at the littered landscape of ext2 file-system drivers for the various versions of Windows that are out there, for example. However, if you're interested in pursuing this, I would suggest that you start with the file-system driver. If you can create a good driver for an existing file-system that resolves the problem you state without introducing other difficulties, it would be a great addition to the open-source community, regardless of whether it's an integrated part of Cygwin or not. -- Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com RFK Partners, Inc. (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office 216 Dalton Rd. (508) 893-9889 - FAX Holliston, MA 01746 -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/