From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-alma10-1.taild15c8.ts.net [100.103.45.18]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 52339332EBB; Fri, 4 Sep 2026 09:15:49 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1788513350; cv=none; b=Kv8VEvZmQ0KAQG2/aMBgJyJb9sMQID8Fv1J888CgGm+bE5vtrg1bcWTXLztFg5ZdakVq+FYJBrC5d5ODRKtzXtGczlayhZ9zEbHOFQHCLo/1okl0nekcM3PguoZE30XykBaGGDXPPmCEyNaHZNY3vfeehRNSR0+ZGZQvKlqTDyI= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1788513350; c=relaxed/simple; bh=0Kjz+wSEcdot/Kp+frqf0GhQv33OLZIVvwXtWAhVB5s=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=eBwouYxYfoxZ4hnYP7s24ceOxiUHXWgWSVSCn/GJjYmgZPC8qUgP7DbaRQPV/vpS2LXGwU4f+N+SgRSRyit+zTT2wdCo+yg8SwVz4+QL6dEbs+xrkomMohKKdkYqKrQO7w/KVlniIBmoFw1ugOl7IFtg7zMwdv+gDtLmEz+ACjc= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=VufFzf3C; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="VufFzf3C" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 031B41F00A3D; Fri, 4 Sep 2026 09:15:39 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=kernel.org; s=k20260515; t=1788513348; bh=0Kjz+wSEcdot/Kp+frqf0GhQv33OLZIVvwXtWAhVB5s=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=VufFzf3Cilbm8QtKx3NZr5yYaHyhMTKVokK/7JAundphZYwRJZyAo6texlJnLQJqv 0fvCDCCOIVb3jI6uaP0ILqKvLG9T78RTOyIAFsuMHsgnyPijzHoRFRRH6DQ2StiC/3 sH7vQ+ZLgzYJDgBDjOKSkfPwiqGFsosDZvbfmwZCP7Si+SvxBLGIojDr0IlwCbKulZ f9zPR8PI9gm1tbspmiVQz4qHraB1WqCV60hXJT0rY4w4G/8lUxsiwseP80Cg38WaQz P/s+D4hWHjAkILDLihL2QiXOz1ytOJPa+YYlmRwU+mUvvetZVXXljSRz0hn9gYQry6 sOBg5ihVyDPaA== Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2026 10:15:37 +0100 From: "Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" To: Tigran Aivazian Cc: Ethan Nelson-Moore , Shuah Khan , Randy Dunlap , Michael Ellerman , Nicholas Piggin , "Christophe Leroy (CS GROUP)" , Jan Kara , Jakub Kicinski , Namjae Jeon , Hisam Mehboob , Martin =?utf-8?Q?Kepplinger-Novakovi=C4=87?= , Christian Brauner , Amir Goldstein , Bagas Sanjaya , Eric Biggers , Geert Uytterhoeven , David Howells , Thomas Bogendoerfer , Theodore Ts'o , Catalin Iacob , Stephen Hemminger , Andrew Lunn , "Maciej W. Rozycki" , Andrei Vagin , Wei Yang , Bhavik Sachdev , Andrew Morton , Wang Yan , Bala-Vignesh-Reddy , Malaya Kumar Rout , linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-mips@vger.kernel.org, linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org, Luis de Bethencourt , Salah Triki , Jonathan Corbet , Madhavan Srinivasan , Alexander Viro Subject: Re: [PATCH] bfs: remove the filesystem Message-ID: References: <20260904082954.48738-1-enelsonmoore@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: On Fri, Sep 04, 2026 at 09:51:10AM +0100, Tigran Aivazian wrote: > Hi Ethan, > > On Fri, 4 Sept 2026 at 09:30, Ethan Nelson-Moore wrote: > > > > BFS (not to be confused with BeFS, the BeOS filesystem) is the > > filesystem UnixWare uses for its boot partition. It has extremely > > limited functionality, only supporting contiguous files and no > > subdirectories. Even though the bfs driver is very small and is > > unlikely to cause future maintenance problems, given that the only type > > of data stored on such a partition is likely to be kernels and > > bootloader settings, there is very little reason anyone would want to > > access it from Linux. Other old Unix filesystems (efs, freevxfs) have > > been removed recently, and bfs is highly unlikely to have any users, so > > remove it as well. Retain the UAPI header to be safe. > > > > You are right that probably no one would want to use BFS for storing > the actual data today. > But some things have didactical value, rather than mere pragmatic > usage. It is the didactic > value of MINIX (and its limitations wrt making use of the wonderful > capabilities of i386) that > has originally triggered the creation of Linux. But back to BFS: it is > actually used in Steve Pate's > book "Linux Filesystems" (2024, unfinished yet), which is a sequel to > his excellent classic > "UNIX Filesystems" (2003), as an illustration of a particularly simple > filesystem implementation. Oh wow! :) Nice to hear a new linux book is coming, as a fellow author [fighting my way through the editing stage atm :)] that's good to hear. (I also learned, the hard way, why people don't tend to write kernel books these days - the modern kernel is too damn big! :) > > I remember when Linus accepted my patch with BFS on 28 October 1999 > into 2.3.25 his comment > was: "this appears to be a particularly simple one". :)) nice! We shouldn't be afraid to remove stuff that is less maintained or that causes maintenance overhead or other headaches (e.g. blocking things from being developed), as I have often pointed out re: older architectures, nommu etc. But I'm not sure if any of that applies here or not, so really one for VFS maintainers I think. > > Kind regards, > Tigran -- Cheers, Lorenzo