Using PFS on harddisk


Restrictions and requirements

PFS 9.5 only supports harddisk partitions of up to 32 MB in size.  I
know this is a serious limitation; it will be eliminated as soon as
possible.  It can be installed and automounted in the RidgidBootBlock,
but standard mountlists are also supported.  Memory usage depends on
the size of the partition and the complexity of the directory tree.
It will vary between 70K and 150K.


Preparing installation

Select or make a suitable partition (less than 32 MB).  All the data
in the selected partition will be destroyed when installing PFS, so
make sure you make a backup.  PFS must be installed in the l:
directory.  Copy the version you want (ProfFileSystem or
ProfFileSystem68020+) to l:  and rename it to 'ProfFileSystem'.  Only
version 9.0 or higher will work with harddisks!


Installing PFS on the partition

  Now you can install PFS on the RidgidDiskBlock.  Make sure you
backup the partitions you're going to change!  The size of the
partition should not exceed 32MB.  You can make such a partition with
Commodere's HDToolbox, which is supplied with the Workbench software.
With the same tool we can install PFS on the partition.

  Select 'advanced options' in the the partitioning window.  A number
of extra buttons appear among which 'add/update...' with which you
have to add PFS.  Set the dostype field to '0x50465300' , version 9.5
and select ok.  After you have done that you can install PFS on the
desired partition with the 'change...' button.  Use all the default
options:  automount on, block size 512 (other sizes are not
supported), 2 reservered blocks.  Now select ok and the partioning
menu will appear again.  Go back to the main screen and save the
changes.

  PFS should be installed on the partition now.  After formatting it's
available for use.


Notes

  During startup the filesystem will be loaded from the
RidgidDiskBlock and the PFS partition will be mounted.  PFS will be in
the FileSystem Resource list now.  This means that any PFS device,
including floppies, mounted will envoke the same 'pure' PFS, the one
in the resource list, reentrantly.

  So if there is an update of PFS and you want to install it, changing
l:proffilesystem is not enough, you have to update the RDB version
too.  This can be done with HDToolBox.

  If you don't want PFS to be automounted for some reason
(incompatibilities etc.), you can prevent mounting by deselecting the
PFS partition with the boot menu.

  The stacksize as stated in mountlists can now be 600 instead of the
5000 of previous versions.



To do

Top priority:

- Support for larger partitions.
- Support of hard- & softlinks and notification.


User requests:

Recovery tool: I would like others to make this. I enclosed
programmers info and will on the next public release too.

Optimize tool: Holger Kruse (ReOrg author) is thinking about it.

Conversion tool FFS<->PFS:  Very complicated.  I won't make this.

XPK packing: I will work on this when the top priority updates are
ready

MultiUser support: Pavel Troller works on it