Re: linux kernel without file system

[Philippe De Muyter <phdm@macqel.be>]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 12:59:49PM +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2009, Philippe De Muyter wrote:
> > Actually, I was thinking about reducing the footprint of my kernel by
> > removing all the fs-related system calls, so the problem is not where
> > the file-system is, but how to access (serial) devices without giving their
> > "/dev/..." name.
> 
> One thing that you can do is remove support for block devices in somewhat
> recent kernels, which gets you most of the way. File systems themselves
> are required for the majority of all system calls (anything that takes
> a file descriptor) and for the boot process.

file descriptor is actually an historical name, now too particular.

I would like to keep sockets and serial lines, for which the handle is a
"file descriptor", but not use any file.  So, of course I need to keep
write(), read(), poll(), socket() etc, but not open(), link(), mknod() and
everything that walks a directory tree.

Philippe