geom meaning

fluca1978

fluca1978

This is somewhat useless but I'm curious to know if GEOM is an acronym with a particular meaning. I suspect it stands for geometry that is not expressing all the power of this framework.
 
I think it is just a shortened nickname for GEOMETRY as in 'hard disk geometry' -- platters, sector size, etc, and used to encompass all the drivers for the disks. (IANAE).
 
jb_fvwm2 said:
I think it is just a shortened nickname for GEOMETRY as in 'hard disk geometry' -- platters, sector size, etc, and used to encompass all the drivers for the disks. (IANAE).
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I was going to reply the same thing. It's in all caps though which is why I believe the op may be correct in it somehow being associated with an acronym.

I've always wondered what geli stood for which on the other hand is not in caps.
 
UNIXgod said:
I've always wondered what geli stood for which on the other hand is not in caps.
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I'm just guessing here, the g is for GEOM, I'm sure about that. But I'm not entirely sure about 'eli' though, could be Encryption Layer Interface.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Seems that in the McKusick book he talks about this but I can't reach my copy right now.
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I one day plan on reading that book. When your arms reach again let us know.
 
UNIXgod said:
I've always wondered what geli stood for which on the other hand is not in caps.
Click to expand...

Well, even gbde which stands for GEOM Based Disk Encryption is written lowercase.
And to add some confusion, with regard to geli, an encrypted partition is named .eli loosing the initial 'g'...

I've read the McKusick's book and I don't remember there was an explanation for the (supposed) GEOM acronym, but I don't have it right here to check.
 
Maybe I got it: when written upper-case it indicates a transformation class, so GBDE is a transformation; when written lower-case it indicates a class implementation. Therefore the GBDE set of transformation is performed via the gbde implementation (module).
With regard to geli vs eli, looking at the source code seems that every module lacks the initial GEOM's G, thererfore gmirror is named mirror and geli is named eli.
So it should be that:
- GELI is a transformation class (i.e., a specification)
- geli is the class implementation (i.e., an implementation)
- eli is the module where the above implementation lives (that is eli implements the geli class).

By the way, GEOM is really the shorten for GEOMetry (got from the geom@ mailing list).

Does it sound good?
 
Sounds good but still doesn't explain what the 'eli' part actually means. If it's an acronym or not :e
 
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