/dev/kmem

[Richard Huveneers <huveneer@math.ruu.nl>]

I think of porting a BSD-like "ps" and "top" to Mint.
I know "ps" and "top" already exist for Mint, but they don't support the usual
options.

Since "ps" normally consults /dev/kmem, I can do two things:

- Change "ps" to consult /proc
- Implement /dev/kmem

The last one seems the most desireable solution to me, since Mint would become
more BSD-ish in that way.

Now my question is this: Why was /proc implemented into Mint?
Has /proc advantages over /dev/kmem?
Was /proc ment to be replaced by a /dev/kmem implementation at the end?

If /dev/kmem is better than /proc, I will give it a try,

Richard.

P.S.: I succeeded in porting "screen 3.5.2" to Mint. Here is a short
description taken from the manual:

     Screen is a full-screen window manager  that  multiplexes  a
     physical   terminal  between  several  processes  (typically
     interactive shells).  Each  virtual  terminal  provides  the
     functions  of a DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several
     control functions from the ANSI X3.64  (ISO  6429)  and  ISO
     2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support for mul-
     tiple character sets).  There is a scrollback history buffer
     for  each  virtual  terminal  and a copy-and-paste mechanism
     that allows moving text regions between windows.

Screen uses around 600K of memory. If Mint had proper forking, or if I would
succeed in compiling screen shareable, it would take up 400K.

Mail me if you're interested. I will send you the executable. I can't do that
earlier than friday (sorry).