| Ceph is interesting... open source software whose only purpose is to implement a distributed file system... Functionally, Linux implements a file system (well, several!) as well (in addition to many other OS features) -- but (usually!) only on top of local hardware. There seems to be some missing software here -- if we examine these two paradigms side-by-side. For example, what if I want a Linux (or more broadly, a general OS) -- but one that doesn't manage a local file system or local storage at all? One that operates solely using the network, solely using a distributed file system that Ceph, or software like Ceph, would provide? Conversely, what if I don't want to run a full OS on a network machine, a network node that manages its own local storage? The only thing I can think of to solve those types of problems -- is: What if the Linux filesystem was written such that it was a completely separate piece of software, and a distributed file system like Ceph, and not dependent on the other kernel source code (although, still complilable into the kernel as most linux components normally are)... A lot of work? Probably! But there seems to be some software need for something between a solely distributed file system as Ceph is, and a completely monolithic "everything baked in" (but not distributed!) OS/kernel as Linux is... Note that I am just thinking aloud here -- I probably am wrong and/or misinformed on one or more fronts! So, kindly take this random "thinking aloud" post -- with the proverbial "grain of salt!" :-) |
Linux can boot from NFS although that's kind of lost knowledge. Booting from CephFS might even be possible if you put the right parts in the initrd.