A filesystem standard?

[Dr. 128bit]

On a PC we have standards for everything: the PCI standard, the Unicode standard, the Executable Format standard (ELF is very portable and many new OS use it), but it does not exist a (pseudo) universal File System.
When I download a hobby OS it use a native file system (or sometimes FAT), but I think it is the moment to have a global file system.

What should this file system support?
IMHO:
- B-Trees to support large directories and minimize the file searching process
- Unicode support to easily read the file names on every machine (US, Japanese, Thai, etc.)

[Xenos]

Encryption and (perhaps) compression would be nice...

[Dr. 128bit]

Oh yes, the file system should be very secure.

I am trying to code this FS and I'd like to run it on small drives too, such as floppies, because many advanced FS (Reiser, XFS, etc.) are too large to fit on a 1.44 disk.
The blocks (or clusters) are not grouped into block groups (like ext2fs), so there is the superblock, the block bitmap and the directories. The directories' data contain the b-tree node info, the file info and the file name (2 file names per b-tree node, since I use a order 1 b-tree).

[Jamethiel]

Sure we have a standard universal file system. Almost every OS out there supports FAT.

On the other paw, I don't really care if you write another standard for me to ignore. I'm ignoring enough of them already.

[Dr. 128bit]

Yes but FAT is _old_.
It is very slow on large directories, it does not support unicode and IIRC the way it stored the names is a bit cryptic (this_is_my_file.txt will be saved as this_i~1.txt)

[Brill]

Just use XFS. It pretty much does everything you might ever need anyway.

Brill.

[rexlunae]

A standard is only meaningful to the extent that it is widely adopted.  So why not take one of the existing file systems out there (like Reiser or ext[123...]) and use that.  You are not a standards organization, so you probably don't have very much sway over what other people are going to use.  At least if you adopt a filesystem already in use, you will have some standardization, and it will be easier to use a bootloader like grub.

If existing filesystems don't meet all your needs, extend one.  Other developers will be more likely to adopt your file system if it is similar to one they use already, especially if you have additional features which they want.

[Chase]

Isn't UFS the Univeral File System? Why not use that?

I think you might have better luck doing something a little different than traditional filesystems....

The is some research into combining file systems and relational data bases going on now. Maybe you could work on defining a standard for this type of access. The filesystem eqivalant of SQL. Take a look at:
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/13176 ... -2002.html

Or maybe a filesystem support module architecture....a standard plug in for all OSes to add support for a file system...kinda like VFS -> UFS

Not real sure but you have a better chance of getting a higher level API of some sort widely adopted then a new filesystem.

[darklife]

they are supported by almost every popular OS. Isn't that standard enough? Just use whatever cruddy filesystem Microsoft is using and then you will have global support

[rexlunae]

So NTFS then...?

[Chase]

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/9/172159/7912

Nice little article...

[bubach]

i think i am going to use "my own" file sytem in my os, but i am also going to have support for many "standard" filesystems, like FAT..

thats the way i think i will do.. =)

[ChZ]

FAT's long file name support uses unicode.