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IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-11-12:

    <sea4ever> So hurd implements a 'transparent translator' somewhere which
      just passes all IO calls to the posix IO I'm used to? (i.e. read, write,
      open, close, etc.?)
    <youpi> it's the normal way of operation
    <youpi> glibc's read() doesn't do a system call, it always does an RPC to
      the underlying translator
    <youpi> be it ext2fs for /, or your foobarfs for your node
    <sea4ever> Ok that makes sense. How does one program know which translator
      it should refer to though?
    <sea4ever> the read() call magically knows which process to invoke?
    <youpi> the / translator is always known
    <youpi> and then you ask /'s translator about /home, then /home/you, then
      /home/you/foobar
    <youpi> it tells you which other translator tyou have to contact
    <youpi> that's on open
    <sea4ever> It's a tree! Ok.
    <youpi> the notion of fd is then simply knowing the translator
    <sea4ever> Right. 'file descriptor' is now 'translator address descriptor'
      maybe.
    <youpi> it's glibc which knows about FDs, nothing else knows
    <youpi> yes
    <youpi> actually an RPC port, simply
    <sea4ever> I want to try out the new RPC mechanism that mach implements
    <youpi> err, which "new" RPC ?
    <youpi> mach's RPCs are very old actually :)