Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote:
On Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 11:53:36PM +0300, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
As a side note, I don't know why the "user space interface" does not
include those programs (well, I can understand about ext2 tools,
assuming ext changed format since 2.4, which I don't know whether it
has).
We don't break compatibility lightly, but sometimes it's needed. Note
that these are all "system utilities" which have tight interactions
with the kernel. Obviously it's better if no changes are needed, but
sometimes they are.
I guess that's why I was referring to mount(2) and not mount(8). The
first is a published and documented system call, and I will find it odd
if the kernel allowed itself to break it.
I don't recall exactly when or why the procps version was bumped, but
you might want to take a look at /proc/meminfo sometime - it's highly
kernel version specific. And yes, ps parses it.
ok. I still think it shouldn't bother ps to do its main functionality,
but I can see why that would matter.
You have it backwards. 2.6 relies on udev to create /dev. No udev will
exist on Aviram's old system, hence no /dev by default. You could
probably work around it by creating a static /dev.
I believe you are the one who has got it backwards. Under Redhat 7.2,
dev WAS created statically. In general, many of the answers you gave
here seem to me to apply to the opposite case, where an old kernel is
dropped into a new userspace.
My point is that the kernel (or glibc, or any other major piece of
system software) usually has subtle dependencies on other pieces of
system software.
My point is that "user space backwards compatibility" is meaningless if
there is no, well, user space backwards compatibility. Relying on the
insides of file systems in motion (such as sysfs was at the early
versions of 2.6) is sort of acceptable, but I really would have
preferred it if Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt would say something
along the lines of "the interface is guaranteed to have the field name,
a bunch of white spaces, a number and a unit (which can be kB, mB or gB
only)". In other words, if the docs gave all I needed to write a user
space program that, if didn't actually work under all conditions, at
least could tell when it doesn't have enough info to work, for all
future versions. Otherwise, it seems to me, that the "stable userspace"
pledge is just a facade.
Shachar
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