Re: linux kernel without file system

Philippe De Muyter
2009-01-14T09:34:51Z

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 09:46:48AM +0100, Tomasz Chmielewski wrote:
>> I need to design a very small embedded system that must only control
>> one ethernet port and two serial lines and must fit in a very small flash
>> memory. So I thought about replacing the call to /etc/init by my
>> application
>> program and removing all the file-system part of linux.
>> Is that doable ?
>> Is there a 'standard' way of doing that ?
>> The first problem I see is accessing my serial lines. How could I do that
>> without using open("/dev/ttySx"), which requires a file system ?
>> Is there a way to access devices that does not require a file-system ?
>
> You could put everything in initramfs (and embed it in the kernel).

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.

Thanks anyway

Philippe