On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Alan Cox wrote:

> > As far as sysctl goes, FreeBSD deprecates the use of numbers for OIDs and
> > has a string-based mechanism for exploring the sysctl tree.
> 
> So we are actually both going the same way. Linus with /proc/sys and his
> official dislike of sysctl (Oh well I think sysctl using number spaces is the
> right idea - like snmp is), and BSD going to names

As far as I know, only FreeBSD has a string-based sysctl implementation.
Something which always confused me about Linux' procfs - what have all
these kernel variables got to do with process state?  We used to have a
kernfs which was intended for this kind of thing but it rotted after
people started extending sysctl for the purpose.

--
Doug Rabson				Mail:  dfr@nlsystems.com
Nonlinear Systems Ltd.			Phone: +44 181 442 9037