Justus Winter <4win...@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> skribis: > Quoting Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?= (2013-09-19 12:19:00) >> Justus Winter <4win...@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> skribis: >> >> > This patch makes runsystem.sh check whether /proc is set up and does >> > so using settrans -c if it is not. >> >> I think this should be a Debian patch rather, because while /proc is a >> useful Linux compatibility feature, it’s not a mandatory part of the Hurd. > > Ah yes, of course. I keep getting those mixed up in my head ;) > > Then again, I always wondered why the procfs lives outside the Hurd > source. Yes, Linux has /proc, but so do many other Unixes and - if > memory serves right - /proc is a gift from plan9, no? > > And the Hurd uses the filesystem as namespace for server lookups, that > seems to follow closely the everything-is-a-file philosophy right? And > if everything is a file, processes should be as well, hence /proc.
Passing data around as text is what Plan 9 does, whereas the Hurd uses dedicated interfaces and RPCs. RPCs are a richer way to exchange information than plain text since their arguments and return values are typed; they can also be easily interposed on, etc. The information that Linux-style /proc provides can be obtained through appropriate RPCs to the proc server, to the msg interface of POSIX processes, etc. But you already know all this. :-) It suppose Debian uses tools coming from Linux that expect /proc to be present (such as ‘procps’), in which case it makes sense for Debian to have /proc mounted early. Ludo’.
