From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Re: a patch for free in the ps-0.97 package Date: 16 Aug 1992 11:45:37 GMT
Just in case anybody wonders: yes, the next patch will again break all
programs (well, most of them) that read kernel memory directly. In
fact, some things, notably the command line snooping that 'ps' does and
the page-counting ("ps m") will break totally: they have to be
rewritten, and will need kernel support. The reason is that /dev/mem is
no longer able to read the data in other processes: the memory
management has changed to use different page tables for each process.
I either have to implement some kind of /proc filesystem or support
some "get_ps_info()" system call - the get_ps_info() way is easier, but
a /proc fs might be a good idea and is more general. It will have to
wait for 0.98 or so, though: 0.97.pl2 won't have a good ps interface.
Linus