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- From: chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg)
-
- According to sp@mysteron.osf.org (Simon Patience):
- >Some realtime embedded systems do not have a file system but do want
- >semaphores. So this allows them to have them without having to bring
- >in the baggage a file system would entail.
-
- I was under the impression that POSIX was designing a portable Unix
- interface. Without a filesystem, you don't have Unix, do you?
- Besides, a given embedded system's library could easily emulate a
- baby-simple filesystem.
-
- >Secondly, as far as threads, which are supposed to be light weight,
- >are concerned it allows semaphores to be implmented in user space
- >rather than forcing them into the kernel for the file system.
-
- The desire for user-space support indicates to me that there should be
- some provision for non-filesystem (anonymous) IPCs that can be created
- and used without kernel intervention. This need does not reduce the
- desirability of putting global IPCs in the filesystem.
-
- >A good reason for *not* having IPC handles in the file system is to allow
- >network IPC to use the same interfaces.
-
- Filesystem entities can be used to trigger network activity by the
- kernel (or its stand-in), even if they do not reside on shared
- filesystems.
- --
- Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
-
- Volume-Number: Volume 21, Number 74
-
-