problem with file selection dialog boxes under linux apps

[Rick C. Petty]

On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 03:55:38PM -0300, Joey Mingrone wrote:
> 
> I've noticed a strange problem with the file dialogue boxes, in some
> linux applications such as acroread7 and linux-firefox.  The problem
> is that not all directories are listed.  For example, when I browse to
> /usr/ the directory local doesn't show up.  If I open the native
> firefox instead of linux-firefox all directories are properly listed.

I'm pretty sure this has to do with how the compat layer works..  The
linuxulator effectively does a "unionfs" between the freebsd filesystem
(everything) and the linux stuff (/usr/compat/linux/).  When you try to
access a file, if the file exists in /usr/compat/linux/ that's the file
which is referenced.  If not, the same filename is used against /.

In standard file operations boxes, the linux code is doing an
opendir/readdir, and obviously anything "hidden" in the freebsd layer isn't
going to be shown.  Hence, this isn't a true unionfs.  In your case,
because /usr/ exists as /usr/compat/linux/usr/ you won't see anything
besides what's in that directory.

I actually like the idea that my freebsd files are hidden from linux, and I
think this was the intent of the ABI authors.

-- Rick C. Petty