GnomeVFS (short for GNOME Virtual File System) was an

abstraction layer In computing, an abstraction layer or abstraction level is a way of hiding the working details of a subsystem. Examples of software models that use layers of abstraction include the OSI model for network protocols, OpenGL, and other graphics libra ...

of the GNOME platform for the reading, writing and execution of files. Before GNOME 2.22 GnomeVFS was primarily used by the appropriate versions of Nautilus file manager (renamed to GNOME Files) and other GNOME applications. A cause of confusion is the fact that the file system abstraction used by the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

is also called the

virtual file system A virtual file system (VFS) or virtual filesystem switch is an abstract layer on top of a more concrete file system. The purpose of a VFS is to allow client applications to access different types of concrete file systems in a uniform way. A VFS ...

(VFS) layer. This is however at a lower level. Due to perceived shortcomings of GnomeVFS a replacement called

GVfs GVfs (abbreviation for GNOME virtual file system) is GNOME's userspace virtual filesystem designed to work with the I/O abstraction of GIO, a library available in GLib since version 2.15.1. It installs several modules that are automatically us ...

was developed. GVfs is based on GIO and allows partitions to be mounted through FUSE. With the release of GNOME 2.22 in April 2008, GnomeVFS was declared

deprecated Deprecation is the discouragement of use of something human-made, such as a term, feature, design, or practice. Typically something is deprecated because it is claimed to be inferior compared to other options available. Something may be deprec ...

in favor of

and GIO, requesting that developers not use it in new applications.

References

External links

GnomeVFS - Filesystem Abstraction library documentation

Writing GnomeVFS Modules
GNOME obsolete {{GNOME-stub