From: Sean Russell <ser@...>
Date: 2002-06-03T10:29:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Finding all applications

Chris Gehlker wrote:

>> on various *n*x platforms.  I seem to recall some fs-as-db filesystems
>> getting some news recently in the *n*x world.  Perhaps that's worth a
>> look.

<replying-to-wrong-poster>
I have a lot of respect for the BeOS people.  Enough that, when they 
switched from a db-as-fs to an inode-based-fs, I decided that db-as-fs 
probably wasn't a good idea.

However: there are a /lot/ of things you can do if you have a DB interface 
to your FS.  The question is whether it is better to layer a DB on top of 
the fs (as slocate primitively does) or to have a DB and try to simulate an 
inode FS on top of that (as BeOS did).

> So what happens when you  double click an html file. KDE must do
> something.

Well, usually, it opens the file as a browser.  KDE does use file endings 
and mime type mappings.  It also provides some rudimentary mime-type-magic 
by a mechanism to look at the first few bytes in a file.

-- 
 |..  "What are politicians going to tell people when the Constitution is
<|>    gone and we still have a drug problem?"
/|\   -- William Simpson, A.C.L.U. 
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