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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!quip.eecs.umich.edu!mcnally From: mcnally@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Mike McNally) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: DOS emulation Date: 27 Sep 1993 20:18:10 GMT Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI Lines: 19 Message-ID: <287hq2$k21@zip.eecs.umich.edu> References: <newmanCD7FsC.Gq2@netcom.com> <VIXIE.93Sep11141122@gw.home.vix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: quip.eecs.umich.edu In article <VIXIE.93Sep11141122@gw.home.vix.com>, Paul A Vixie <vixie@gw.home.vix.com> wrote: > I believe that the various "free" BSD efforts (NetBSD, >FreeBSD, 386BSD) also include "mtools". At least one of those others also >includes the ability to mount DOS floppies or "fdisk" partitions directly into >the BSD file system hierarchy, obviating the need for "mtools". [...] > But even with those limitations it is >still nicer to mount things through the kernel than to use user-mode utilities >such as "mtools". Yes and no. I have the pcfs extensions compiled into my 386bsd kernel and while I will occasionally mount an MS-DOS filesystem I wind up using mtools about 90% of the time because the pcfs stuff (at least the stuff I have) is dreadfully slow. "User mode utilities" such as mtools are also well suited for unprivileged users on machines where Joe Average is not allowed to mount an arbitrary filesystem (for mostly obvious reasons..)