[comp.unix.wizards] Speaking of Unix, unbundling, etc...

allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (06/08/88)

On unbundling:

I have never used *troff, pic, *eqn, etc. and rarely used tbl or nroff with
anything except man page source.  DWB and WWB could be replaced with a
small, fast program to format the majority of man pages without affecting me
or most others that I know.

On a tangent of sorts...

Given, the file system switch.  We also have header files for both the
"generic" data structures and the S51K file system.  We also get the ability
to relink the kernel with our own additions.

Query:  Is it too much to ask that some kind of information be available to
show how one would write one's own filesystem code for the FSS *for a
particular implementation*?  I'd like to be able to mount some disks from a
foreign *nix; the low-level format is readable, but the filesystem isn't.
I'd also be interested in implementing an MS-DOS filesystem.  (Of course,
certain operations like link() wouldn't be supported on such a filesystem.)

No doubt this is available from AT&T... for 3B2s.  Would it be any good for
non-AT&T system architectures?
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery			  | "Given its constituency, the only
uunet!marque,sun!mandrill}!ncoast!allbery | thing I expect to be "open" about
Delphi: ALLBERY	       MCI Mail: BALLBERY | [the Open Software Foundation] is
comp.sources.misc: ncoast!sources-misc    | its mouth."  --John Gilmore

gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (06/09/88)

In article <7933@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>On unbundling:
>I have never used *troff, pic, *eqn, etc. and rarely used tbl or nroff with
>anything except man page source.  DWB and WWB could be replaced with a
>small, fast program to format the majority of man pages without affecting me
>or most others that I know.

This has in fact been done.  Many systems come with "cattable" manual
entries (preformatted, typically for a fairly dumb terminal such as
tty37, sometimes requiring an appropriate output filter to handle
embedded escape sequences).  At one point UNIX System V and/or DWB
also had an "sroff" formatter which was meant to be a fast replacement
for "nroff -mm".  Presumably most nroff users could survive with just
catman and sroff.  I think sroff died somewhere along the way, though.

By the way, WWB is the Writer's WorkBench, which is mostly a set of
tools for evaluating document style etc.  It has very little to do
with text formatting.

allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (06/18/88)

As quoted from <5775@megaron.arizona.edu> by lm@arizona.edu (Larry McVoy):
+---------------
| In article <7933@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
| >Given, the file system switch.  We also have header files for both the
| >"generic" data structures and the S51K file system.  We also get the ability
| >to relink the kernel with our own additions.
| >
| >Query:  Is it too much to ask that some kind of information be available to
| >show how one would write one's own filesystem code for the FSS *for a
| >particular implementation*?  
| 
| It's pretty easy, actually.  Take a look at /usr/src/uts/???/fs/s5 and at
| (on an eta machine :-) .../cf/lboot_cf.c (on other machines this will vary,
> ...
| I assume, of course, that you have source.  And my point is that the source
| is your best documentation (flames to /dev/whiners).
+---------------

No, I will *not* exile myself to /dev/whiners, even though all you lordly
beings who have source wish we would go away.  It may be time to organize a
PD Posix implementation working group (it has been pointed out to me that Gnu
may well not be Posix-compatible) -- because many if not most of those who
run Unix *can't* *afford* source:  we aren't universities eligible for
educational licenses and we aren't huge companies to which $65,000 is
peanuts.
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery			  | "Given its constituency, the only
uunet!marque,sun!mandrill}!ncoast!allbery | thing I expect to be "open" about
Delphi: ALLBERY	       MCI Mail: BALLBERY | [the Open Software Foundation] is
comp.sources.misc: ncoast!sources-misc    | its mouth."  --John Gilmore