The fable of the land of btrfs, and the gnarly old boot
Once upon a time, there was a magical kingdom called btrfs, with many CoWs in it. In this kingdom was a castle, called Castle Carfax. One of the most important people living in Castle Carfax was called Amelia, and in the castle she kept eight circles of adamant. These hard disks, as they were called, held all the important knowledge of the castle.
One day, Amelia’s grand wizard used some common magic of the kingdom to rearrange the knowledge on Amelia’s circles of adamant, in order to make them balance better. When he had done, he told Amelia to go into a deep sleep, and wake up again. This was something he had done many times before, and he was not expecting any difficulties. But, when he asked her to awaken again, Amelia merely muttered, “no operating system”, and remained asleep.
The grand wizard was mightily befuddled, and feared for Amelia’s safety and for all her knowledge. He feared that the magic of the kingdom of btrfs might be waning. But, not to be daunted by nothing but unfounded fears, he retired to his tower, and engaged many magic spells, for hours, until at last he found out why Amelia was not awakening properly.
One of Amelia’s maidservants, called Bios, had only one eye. When Amelia was to be awakened, Bios could only see five of Amelia’s circles, not all eight. The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth of Amelia’s circles were all kept outside Amelia’s tower, in a small tower next door called the Tower of StarTech. Because Bios only had one eye, she could see the first four circles, but could not see far enough into the Tower of StarTech to see more than just the fifth circle. The remaining three circles, Bios the maidservant could not see.
Because she could not see all of the circles, Bios, and her only friend in the world, a small worm (a kind of grub), could not find Amelia’s boots, which were needed for the spell to awaken Amelia. This was because the grand wizard’s spell had moved the boots from the first two of Amelia’s circles to the last three circles, and as we know, Bios and her worm could not see those circles.
Once the grand wizard discovered that this was the reason that Amelia could not awaken, he muttered many bad words, and then many more incantations. He took a small piece of the first of Amelia’s circles of adamant, and placed on it Amelia’s boots. He then took pity on Bios, and gave her a new friend instead of the worm, called SysLinux.
After all this work, the grand wizard then commanded Amelia to awaken, and Bios and her new friend, SysLinux, found Amelia’s boots, and awakened her again. This is not, however, the end of the story, for when she had brushed the sleep from her eyes, Amelia discovered that although she could read, she could not write. But that is a different and darker tale, and is told elsewhere.