Subject: Re: phasing out mfs; make init(8) use tmpfs?
To: David Young <dyoung@pobox.com>
From: Simon Burge <simonb@NetBSD.org>
List: tech-kern
Date: 02/16/2007 10:44:37
David Young wrote:

> Is there anywhere TMPFS cannot replace MFS, and work at least as well?
> If not, is it ok if we begin to phase MFS out?
> 
> I believe the only part of the system that depends on MFS is init(8).
> If init(8) finds /dev/console missing, it creates /dev/ and runs MAKEDEV
> in it.  I have attached a patch that makes init(8) use TMPFS, instead.
> 
> I will commit this within the next couple weeks unless I hear serious
> concerns.

I'm curious about the mfs vs tmpfs memory usage figures.  Is it
easy for you to boot up to single user for each case and do a
"vmstat -s | grep 'pages free'" ?

The tmpfs case should stop the silly "you've run out of inodes"
problem we seem to regularly see with mfs, right?

Cheers,
Simon.