> - Using venti for backing up a streaming application is not a good idea. > - Contiguous storage areas may be better.
So far I agree with you. > - One potential method to provide access to contiguous > disk space may be a rich partitioning system, e.g. GPT. I can't believe what a terrible idea this is. I honestly thought that PC architecture couldn't get any worse; congratulations. We were running out of 1-byte partition types so now we're going to use random 16-byte identifiers that no one can remember or even read? > - Plan9 does not support the last idea. No, Plan 9 transcends the idea. As Erik pointed out, Plan 9 couldn't care less what bizarro world your disks come from. To keep architecture-specific disk format goo from infecting the kernel, the disk device presents a very simple interface that can be used to implement any partitioning scheme you care to invent, even ones as disgusting as GPT. You write a simple user-level program that opens the raw disk device, reads the partition table, and then creates the partitions by writing commands like part linux 63 11425234 to the disk's ctl file. A GPT implementation would be only a few hundred lines confined to a single user-space program, if anyone cared to write it. Russ
