Re: Hurd and Unix/Linux and Plan9 features

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 11:24:53AM +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

> Use /hurd/firmlink to get hardlinked directories.

Firmlinks aren't the same as hardlinks, neither technically nor
semantically.

If you have a firmlinked file or directory, then there is still a
primary (hard) link and a secondary (firm) link. Removing the primary
link will destroy the directory, breaking the firm link. With hard
links, that doesn't happen.

I think it would be useful to have a link type in the Hurd that can
fully emulate hard links in the above example (by transparently
switching the firmlink to a hard link if the primary link goes away),
but firmlink doesn't do that -- and sadly, I see some fundamental
problems, with probably make such a behaviour unfeasible :-(

-antrik-