Subject: volume header fs...

From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 18:24:09 -0400 (EDT)

What is on a volume header file system?  Is it EFS or something else?

I was thinking about writing such a driver so we could easily put Linux
kernels there. 

- Alex

-- 
Alex deVries, puffin on LinuxNet.
http://www.engsoc.carleton.ca/~adevries/ .

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 10:44:54 +0200

> What is on a volume header file system?  Is it EFS or something else?

The ``MIPS disk volume header'' used by IRIX machines provides only a
very simple filesystem.  Names are limited to 8 characters, files cannot
be fragmented etc.  The later property implies makes it somewhat tricky to
implement a writeable filesystem for this volumeheader.

> I was thinking about writing such a driver so we could easily put Linux

Better write tools analog to dvhtool and fx that can be operated from
command line.  They're easier to implement.

The actual boot loader best goes into something like sash that is small,
resides in the volume header knows how to read ext2 or whatever filesystems.
Libext2 is your friend.

Which reminds me, the SGI people have been discussing long time ago whether
to contribute SGI's sash sources such that writing a Linux sash would be
easier.  Has this discussion ever come to an actual conclusion and if so,
what?

  Ralf

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From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 21:41:21 -0700

> I was thinking about writing such a driver so we could easily put Linux

     It is a very simple flat file system, hardly deserving the name.
The directory is a list of name and (single) extent descriptors.  I don't
have the format ready to hand, but I can look it up if it isn't obvious
from dumping the first few blocks of the volume header (the first few
blocks of the disk).