file I/O and block I/O

Hi list, i have heard the terms file I/O and block I/O. I have very basic question:- What is difference between file I/O and block I/O ?? I mean file I/O itself a block I/O, isn't it? Can anyone explain in details, i shall be highly thankful. ~Vijay -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an emai

normal I/O and sync I/O

Hi list, what is asynchronous read/write operation? How it is different from normal read/write operation? Normally i have seen that the file read/write operation is set to do_sync_read/write which in turns call to aio_read/write. So I could not able understand the difference. TIA, Vijay -- To uns

__initdata query

Hi List, I am a newbie and learning how to write a kernel module. I was reading about __init qualifier, in the init.h file it is mentioned that: /* These macros are used to mark some functions or * initialized data (doesn't apply to uninitialized data) * as `initialization' functions. The kerne

process / thread stack

Hi, In Linux_Kernel_Development book it is mentioned that: A process consists of one or more threads of execution. Each thread includes a unique program counter, process stack, and set of processor registers. So all the threads of a process share the same stack?? TIA, Vijay

bio structure

Hi members, I am reading the Oreilly book and I am reading about the bio structure. I am not able to understand its two fields: unsigned short bi_phys_segments Number of physical segments of the bio after merging unsigned short bi_hw_segments Number of hardware segments after merging What