Re: tmpfs(8) link to the mount_tmpfs man page?

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 07:23:44AM +0000, David Holland wrote:
> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 09:18:18AM +0300, Jukka Ruohonen wrote:
>  > Ideally, there should be a manual page for each file system (cf. tmpfs(8),
>  > hfs(8), and so on), describing some fundamental characteristics. But since
>  > that is unlikely to happen, maybe we should have a generic "filesystems(8)"
>  > where all supported file systems are listed. Then hfs(8), nilfs(8),
>  > ext2fs(8), etc. could be links to that page.
> 
> Traditionally we don't have those, just mount_foofs(8), but I don't
> think that's such a good state of affairs; the mount_* pages are
> necessarily about mounting and not so about what the FS in question is
> or does or is good for.

I was mainly thinking a simple table like:

        Filesystem      Mount             Mount-rump      Status

        FFS             mount_ffs(8)      rump_ffs(8)     stable
        NILFS           mount_nilfs(8)    -               experimental
        LFS             mount_lfs(8)      rump_lfs(8)     unstable

Or something along those lines.

> However, real FS man pages should be in section 4, I think.
> 
> (and we should have section 5 man pages documenting the layout and
> structures, at least for some filesystems.)

Agreed. As always, someone just needs to write those. In most cases this
likely requires special expertise about a particular file system.

Though even few general paragraphs would suffice, I think. File systems are
big enough projects that almost all of them have design documents and other
material that could be listed as pointers to further information.

- Jukka.