Re: Hurd and Unix/Linux and Plan9 features

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > Use /hurd/firmlink to get hardlinked directories.

   Firmlinks aren't the same as hardlinks, neither technically nor
   semantically.

   If you have a firmlinked file or directory, then there is still a
   primary (hard) link and a secondary (firm) link. Removing the
   primary link will destroy the directory, breaking the firm
   link. With hard links, that doesn't happen.

I stand corrected.  

   I think it would be useful to have a link type in the Hurd that can
   fully emulate hard links in the above example (by transparently
   switching the firmlink to a hard link if the primary link goes
   away), but firmlink doesn't do that -- and sadly, I see some
   fundamental problems, with probably make such a behaviour
   unfeasible :-(

I see such problems as well. Do hard links even work on GNU?  One
could, I suppose, use a similar hack to how symlinks are handled, I
think.