On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 5:14 PM, erik quanstrom<quans...@coraid.com> wrote: >> Do we stick with that file format forever? is it perfect and never to >> be changed? > > would it be fair to ask a the same question from a little > different perspective? > > could someone explain what the disadvantages and problems > with 9fat are? i'm asking out of ignorance, since 9fat hasn't > been a problem for me. >
9fat serves only two purposes: a) be a home for plan9.ini, b) be a home for some kernels. in the actual state of affairs, you must have 9fat and it must reside at the very beginning of the Plan 9 slice on the disk. 9null (the project we're talking about) doesn't require any of it, but allows it. you can have a fat partition with plan9.ini and, say, 9pcf. but it can't reside at the very beginning of the disk. in fact, you should be able to have plan9.ini and kernels anywhere you want: fossil, kfs, ext2, iso9660, &c. the Plan 9 slice layout used by 9null is: sector 0: pbs sector 1: Plan 9 partition table sector 2..k: 9pcload kernel sector k..n: data iru
