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The case for the /usr merge

Posted Jan 28, 2012 8:43 UTC (Sat) by linusw (subscriber, #40300)
Parent article: The case for the /usr merge

IIRC ages ago in system V, some vendors (I know for sure the Swedish spin-off DIAB DNIX) would populate /bin with a shell and tools that were not only statically linked, but could also run *without the kernel* if need be, i.e. with compiled-in file system support etc. This is totally alien these days...

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Posted Feb 6, 2012 7:24 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

I'm curious about this.

I can see how you could go out and read the filesystem yourself, especially if there was only one filesystem. But I have no idea how they would get started. Was there a kernel-less shell? Was there process management? How did they get access to the storage medium? This sounds so bizarre.