Re: [9fans] Streaming on venti

["Russ Cox" <rsc@swtch.com>]

>  - Using venti for backing up a streaming application is not a good idea.
>  - Contiguous storage areas may be better.

So far I agree with you.

>  - One potential method to provide access to contiguous
> disk space may be a rich partitioning system, e.g. GPT.

I can't believe what a terrible idea this is.  I honestly thought
that PC architecture couldn't get any worse; congratulations.
We were running out of 1-byte partition types so now we're
going to use random 16-byte identifiers that no one can
remember or even read?

>  - Plan9 does not support the last idea.

No, Plan 9 transcends the idea.

As Erik pointed out, Plan 9 couldn't care less what bizarro world
your disks come from.  To keep architecture-specific disk format goo
from infecting the kernel, the disk device presents a very simple
interface that can be used to implement any partitioning scheme
you care to invent, even ones as disgusting as GPT.
You write a simple user-level program that opens the raw disk
device, reads the partition table, and then creates the partitions
by writing commands like

  part linux 63 11425234

to the disk's ctl file.  A GPT implementation would be only a few
hundred lines confined to a single user-space program, if anyone
cared to write it.

Russ