Hello Dick,

> > If you mean root filesystem on Coda, then no (well, mostly "no way")
>
> No way?
>
> Suppose I make an initrd with Venus define root on a Ramdisk (thru
> initrd) and start Venus to mount the root from there, surely that could
> work or am I forgetting something?

just for example, Coda has no provisions for objects like special files
and named pipes.
Then, it can be tricky to run a user space cache manager for a root file
system, as it needs to access files on its own, and file access operations
begin at "/" ... Surely also a lot of something else :)

Well, let's take it that way:

  Root on Coda? Forget it. :-)

You _can_ run Coda on a diskless machine, it has been done (as Jan
mentioned, too), and it can be useful.
But it should be used in right context, root fs is a wrong one.

Note, you _can_ have diskless clients, totally administered centrally,
and it has nothing to do with placing "/" on a networked filesystem.
Root-on-NFS is just a simple and useful trick... (far from perfect).

Hope it helps,
--
Ivan