Re: Hurd FS hierarchy (was Re: LD_LIBRARY_PATH troubles)

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 02:40:55PM -0400, Richard Kreuter wrote:
> > It should not forbid putting exectuables that can be used as Hurd
> > translators into /bin, btw.
> 
> Should there be an explicit note that server binaries may be located
> in /bin, at the present stage of development?

No, I don't think so.  It's just that a program can behave as a normal
binary and a translator (depending on how it is invoked), this is what makes
/hurd/foo --help etc possible.  Something to keep in mind for later.  There
is no server that allows more than --help, --version and in general checking
of arguments right now if not invoked as a translator.
 
> > I don't think it should list translators auth, proc etc...  the startup
> > procedure is defined by the bootstrap filesystem, and the technical details
> > can change.
> <snip>
> > Again, I don't see why the FHS should contain implementation details about
> > the current Hurd system, although this level of detail might be what the FHS
> > expects to define, so sorry if I am too restrictive.
> 
> Is the objection that the FHS ought not contain implementation details
> about the contents of /hurd at all, or that it shouldn't base those
> details on the current implementation, or both?

I am not really sure.  The FHS seems to contain a lot of implementation
details already about the system in general.  I just think that there are a
lot of reasonable assumptions you can make (and things like having auth and
proc etc are certainly reasonable) that can be untrue if you do things a bit
differently, _without harming interoperability_.  For example, the only
thing that wants /hurd/exec is the boot command (in fact, this is just
another option in the boot command script), and this is a native Hurd
command.  Everybody else who wants to do something with the exec server
talks to /servers/hurd.

So I think that we should probably separate between information that is
required for other programs to interoperate with the Hurd, and information
that is internal to the Hurd system.  This is a weak definition that can
change over time, of course.

> > > > Never heard of /servers/startup.. Where did you get this from? (Can't
> > > > find anything in the archives)
> > > 
> > >   Thomas Bushnell told me to look through paths.h.  My source is old,
> > > though.  Is this faulty?
> > 
> > I think it doesn't exist, although it might in the future.  Definitely leave
> > it out for now.  
> 
> Is there any desire to 'reserve' the location /servers/startup for
> some future use?

I don't know about /servers/startup in particular, but the Hurd will
certainly use more names in /servers in the future.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de