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Many commercial RDBMSs are able to store BLOBS (Binary Large Objects) - An operating system that stores data this way could be indexed on system, application and user preferences allowing for fast and configurable searches/manipulations. Of course a gui should be available for those not wishing to use
a command-line interface.
Current OS allow Relational Database Management Systems to be installed. DBSs like Oracle are powerful enough to allow almost any function/operation that an operating system allows. This idea would be to promote the DBMS to the level of OS, allowing application programmers to access DB functions directly. Likewise, the GUI (often confused with OS) and the file-system would both be controlled and processed on top of this database-structured system.
For the traditionalists, a directory-style structure could be implemented to make it look as though files were stored in the usual fashion, only it would be actually implemented as a separate index table.
The upshot would be an incredibly malleable and powerful operating system based on RDBMS fundamentals.
Non-Linear OS
http://www.halfbake...dea/Non-Linear_20OS
[zen_tom, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]
mycomputer
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/mycomputer
[zen_tom, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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Major OS vendors are looking to move towards file systems that behave like this. |
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There have been at least a couple of calls on the HB for such behaviour - "Non-Linear OS" (in same category, above), and "mycomputer" (which I see you've found, [zen_tom]). |
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Yes, I've seen both ideas - and they both state from a user's perspective what features they want from an operating system. This idea however is stating (rather loosely I realise, but this is the halfbakery) how the features requested might be realised. |
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In addition, we also state here that using a database as the working model on which the os is based, brings us away from the old, directory model (file cabinets and all) providing the workbench upon which real state of the art software could be run - using all the power of an RDBMS directly, rather than having to go through multiple conversion, abstraction and connection layers. |
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So essentially Oracle take the plunge and develop their megalith into a 'streamlined' proprietary OS? |
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If you're a Windows person, you can use Index Server, which is included with Win2k (XP?). It enables database-like functionality, i.e. it builds an index. It automatically indexes common MS files like .xls, .doc, .htm, .pdf, etc. If you fill out the summary information for MS files you create (the "properties"), Index Server finds them automatically. |
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Yes [silverstormer] I suppose that's essentially it, though I wonder whether your quotes around the word 'streamlined' might hint at a certain level of incredulity on your part? |
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I think that this may have already been baked. There used to be a filesystem which was a Virtual File System. I think it was first implemented on a VAX, possibly by Unisys. Hey! its a long time ago. You could change the whole directory structure just by the setting of an enviroment variable. This VFS is now the basis of ClearCase source code control system. Each source database, VOB (Virtual Object thingy), is a huge monolithic database file. The user view is, however, a file system. You can access and manipulate the objects like files using a GUI or using a command line. All the applications live under a shell like interface called cleartool. It looks like a normal files sytem but it is a data base. You can change the whole structure, known as a view, by setting what are essentially environment variables. The VOB is OS independant,eg it can be served by Unix and accessed from Windows or vice versa. As I understand it, only the shell, cleartool is OS dependant. All the applications are identical. |
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I'm suprised this hasn't already been done already - to cut out the stuff you don't need out of the OS, and give the database the whole processor. |
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Also very quick to search. |
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Isn't this basically the "soup" filesystem of the Newton and some other OSs? |
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I don't know [wiml], what's Newton's "soup" all about? |
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Can anyone else remember some software from the 1970s where the DBMS was the OS, and vice versa? I overheard a couple of grizzled veterans discussing it during a cut-over weekend last year, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. I think it ended with 'data'. |
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