Onno Benschop wrote: > > Ok, ok, I'll bite. Don't you mean `bark'? ~:^)
>> So, then someone asks, how come reiserfs doesn't work on sparc. > > I wonder what am I missing? A lot. First, get a book on Unix kernel development and read it completely. Then, design and write a journaling filesystem for any Unix and see how long it takes for you to get a version that runs for longer than ten seconds without panicing the kernel. After you get it to run for several minutes without crashing, then you will already know the answers to this and many other questions, Grasshopper. ~:^) Oh yeah, and don't forget that you have to port every utility that has knowledge of the file system structure, including, but not limited to: mkfs, fsck, dump, restore. Second, someone posted a message showing that it does run on SPARC. Third, a file system is responsible for the meaning and content of it's on-disk data structures; the disk driver layers have nothing to do with that. If the filesystem code inadvertently assumes a certain endianness with respect to how the bytes come off the disk and are placed into words, then things can get broken on machines where that assumption isn't correct. It's a lot easier than you might think for this kind of error to occur. Getting any piece of kernel code to work starts by getting it to work on a specific platform first, then porting/testing it on other platforms as time/demand permits. You might try digging into the list of current bugs for reiserfs to become acquainted with the level of difficulty of the topic you are thinking about while sticking pencils in the ceiling tiles. ~:^) a
