Quote:
Originally Posted by geekmaster
Perhaps loop mounting a raw partition would be faster and use less RAM when NOT going through layers of loop mounting an image file on a fuse filesystem, and the vfat support and all that...
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This last paragraph is the key to the behavior -
the number of VFS layers involved.
Using the loop driver to provide a device-to-device layer (although called part of the Virtual File System) is just a device offset calculation operating below the file-to-device layers.
Plus, adding in a user space file system layer - most bets are off.
The kernel can control, and usually recover from, what happens in kernel space (things like potential deadlock paths).
It has no control over what user space does until it makes a call into kernel space.