all packeted up (with somewhere to go)
As you probably expected, I’ve finally applied for the DOS packets bounty. While is hasn’t technically been accepted yet (since the Team AROS mailing list is having some issues), I’m working on the assumption that it will be accepted, and starting work accordingly.
Deliverables are as follows:
- Major updates to DOS such that it can accept either packets or IOFileSyst commands and either pass them through to the filesystem if it is of the same type, or convert to the other type first. Similarly, the responses will be passed or converted as necessary.
- A console based tool that can issue both packet and IOFileSys commands to DOS. Mixing both command types should work seamlessly. This will be my primary testing tool, and so is the first piece I’ll be working on (already in progress). I expect that I’ll have to extend it throughout the project.
- A working port of Marek Szyprowski’s FATFileSystem. This is the one that Michal sent me last week, that I have permission to release under the APL (and thus include in the AROS source tree). Its packet based, so the aim is to require minimal actual porting work. Its read-only, and perhaps I’ll add write support at some stage, but thats for another project, and isn’t included here.
I won’t be implementing every packet listed in dos/dosextens.h, but finding a balance somewhere between every packet I can find documentation for and doing just enough to get FATFileSystem running. Its more important that the foundations are in place rather than every obscure feature is implemented.
The target date I set myself is 30 April - three months from now. Its probably about right. At my current work rate it feels conservative, but I do have a tendency to assume things are easier than they turn out to be, so hopefully its about right. Of course I’ll keep blogging with my progress.
In other news, earlier today I picked up a 120GB Seagate Momentus hard drive and tonight got it running in my laptop. Thanks to my mad Linux skills, no reinstall required. I got a 2.5"-3.5" adapter, hooked the new drive to my Windows desktop machine and booted up a Linux Live CD. Dropped the laptop to single-user and remounted the drive read-only, and then, with the help of a crossover cable (since my only hub is 10 megabit), did:
# cat /dev/hda | ssh -e none -c blowfish [email protected] "cat > /dev/hda"
After a couple of hours the entire drive image had copied, so a brief jaunt into Parted resulted in a much larger version of my standard filesystem. And I left a spare 10GB on the end in case I want to do some gaming and/or try some kind of “alternate” operating system ;)