On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, sucho2 wrote:

> What are the functionality for the file systems below:
>
> file-system 	FDESC		# /dev/fd
> file-system 	KERNFS		# /kern
> file-system 	NULLFS		# loopback file system
> file-system 	OVERLAY		# overlay file system
> file-system 	PORTAL		# portal filesystem (still experimental)
> file-system 	PROCFS		# /proc
> file-system 	UMAPFS		# NULLFS + uid and gid remapping
> file-system 	UNION		# union file system
>
> Do netbsd kernel use these for performance related functions or I really don't
>
> need these in my custom configuration?

You're not likely to *need* any of them, except maybe PROCFS, if you
run linux programs under emulation. I also leave in KERNFS and FDESC,
because they're neat toys, but I don't believe I've ever encountered a
program that needed either one.

> Also, does having these enhance the web surfing speeds etc?
>
> options 	PPP_BSDCOMP	# BSD-Compress compression support for PPP
> options 	PPP_DEFLATE	# Deflate compression support for PPP
> options 	PPP_FILTER	# Active filter support for PPP (requires bpf)
> options 	PFIL_HOOKS	# pfil(9) packet filter hooks

No, not at all.

> My computer has direct connection to net and at the moment I only have inet
> option enabled in kernel.  However, if having above improves the performance
> or are needed for full kernel functionings, I may want to add them back.

If you don't use "ppp", they do nothing for you. Even if you do, no
commercial terminal servers support the first two, to my knowledge.

> Do we also need these options when you have sound card?
>
> pcppi0		at isa?
> sysbeep0	at pcppi?

At best, they drive the speaker beep, so you don't ever really *need*
them, though only a few sound drivers provide the same functionality
("esm", for one). You could examine the output of "mixerctl -av" for a
"speaker" selection, and see if changing it, or changing the volume,
does anything. With my Aptiva's ESS Solo-1 (eso), for example, varying
the volume of "outputs.pc_speaker" has no effect, and I'd bet that,
without "pcppi" and "sysbeep", the speaker would be silent.

Frederick