Why FreeBSD procfs is so different from the Linux one?

[James]

On Wed, 2007-10-17 at 15:29 -0500, Josh Paetzel wrote:

> Jonathan Chen wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 17, 2007 at 02:24:49AM -0700, Yuri wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > When I look at /proc/PID/ in FreeBSD I see the files:
> > > cmdline ctl     dbregs  etype   file    fpregs  map     mem     note    notepg 
> > > regs    rlimit  status
> > > and in Linux:
> > > cmdline  cpu  cwd  environ  exe  fd  maps  mem  mounts  root  stat  statm  status
> > > 
> > > Why there's such a difference in procfs interface to the process information?
> > > 
> > > In addition Linux has /proc/self/ link which is named curproc in FreeBSD.
> > > 
> > > Isn't it better to have the same interface across the systems?
> > 
> > Maybe. Why don't you get the Linux guys to change theirs? FreeBSD has
> > been around longer.
> 
> Well, technically no.  BSD predates linux, but linux predates FreeBSD
> by a few years.  In general though, linux is a reimplimentation and
> they've had a habit of changing things in the process, but for any
> given interface it's not generally accurate to say linux is the
> reimplimentation....sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.
> 



procfs was an innovation of plan9, so I suppose the thing to do would be
to refer to *their* procfs.

However, either way. I have 1 linux box, something like 15 FreeBSD
boxen, and I have to say that on procfs, linux generally does a job that
I prefer to see. On FreeBSD, it feels more tacked on, while on linux it
feels like there's a lot of rich information there.

James