Re: shmem or swapfs? was: [Patch] make shm filesystem part configurable

Dan Kegel (dank@alumni.caltech.edu)
Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:58:36 -0800


Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu) wrote:
> Christoph Rohland writes:
> > I am quite open about naming, but "shm" is not appropriate any more
> > since the fs does a lot more than shared memory. Solaris calles this
> > "tmpfs" but I did not want to 'steal' their name and I also do not
> > think that it's a very good name.
>
> Admins already know what "tmpfs" means, so you should just call
> your filesystem that. I know it isn't a pretty name, but in the
> interest of reducing confusion, you should use the existing name.
>
> Don't think of it as just "for /tmp". It is for temporary storage.
> The name is a reminder that you shouldn't store archives in tmpfs.
>
> Again for compatibility, Sun's size option would be useful.

I agree with Albert; if it does the same thing as Sun's tmpfs,
let's call it tmpfs, and use the same options.

- Dan
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