Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 8 Mar 2000 08:38:32 -0700 | From | Erik Andersen <> | Subject | [PATCH] towards a /proc-less user space |
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The discussion a couple of weeks ago about "What /proc should contain" got me thinking. I decided that most of what /proc does is not needed for embedded Linux (in this context by "Embedded Linux" I refer to multiprocess distros along the lines of the Linux Router Project and the like, as opposed to deeply embedded, single use, single process stuff).
Since I maintain busybox (which provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities you usually find on your desktop) I decided to figure out what parts of busybox depend on /proc and then begin writing kernel drivers to replace the /proc derived information.
Since my kernel drivers are now sufficient for busybox, I'm interested in comments, flames, design issues, and general peer review. The patch is vs 2.2.14pre13 (I havn't tested it yet with the 2.3 kernels), My kernel patch can be obtained from:
ftp://slag.lineo.com/busybox/devps.patch.3_7
This patch provides 3 device drivers: devps, devmtab, and devmodules. mknod /dev/ps c 10 21 mknod /dev/mtab c 10 22 mknod /dev/modules c 10 23
In my patch I also provide 3 simple user space apps that exercise the drivers. I have also provided a version of busybox ftp://slag.lineo.com/busybox/busybox-0.43pre1.tar.gz
that (when BB_FEATURE_USE_DEVPS_PATCH is defined in busybox.def.h) also uses these new drivers. With all 3 drivers installed in the kernel, they take up 6588 bytes (which is a _lot_ smaller than having to compile in /proc).
-Erik
-- Erik B. Andersen Web: http://www.xmission.com/~andersen/ email: andersee@debian.org --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
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