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Hi, |
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|
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I just wanted to open for discussion another idea I've got to solve the |
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problem of having to update a system with a fixed set of pre-installed |
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components, aka the "Gentoo for OSX" problem. |
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I would like to avoid the prefixed approach (which seems to need changes |
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in the system software, i.e. the Portage system). |
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Instead i would like to solve the problem on a lower level. |
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|
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A (Linux) LiveCD distribution faces a similar problem, because you have a |
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amount of static / read only content on your CD, while you are still able |
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to install packages from the internet. |
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Such Live CDs solve this by the introduction of "read-write" mounted |
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CD-ROM devices, using a mechanism called a "union file system". Such a |
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Union file system (unionfs) provides a unified view from a couple of |
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source trees to a result tree. THis applies to all file system accesses, |
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i.e. read, write, list directory a.s.o.. |
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|
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A unionfs is supported natively by MacOSX. |
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|
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A problem of such an approach is that mounted file systems are visible |
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globally. A better solution would be a file system which is only visible |
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in a local environment. |
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Unfortunately real user space per process file systems are not yet |
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available on Unix like sstems, including Linux and Darwin / MacOSX. |
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|
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For Linux there exist some work to implement such functionality, e.g. in |
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the Plasticfs project on Sourceforge. It seems to be implemented as some |
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kind of clever LD_PRELOAD hack. |
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|
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Regards |
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Dirk |
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|
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-osx@g.o mailing list |