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Re: ReiserFS (was: Mandrake 7.0 is here...)



On Sun, 16 Jan 2000, Eli Marmor wrote:

> I was curious to know: What will be the first distribution to include
> full ReiserFS?

are you sure it's distro material yet?

> SuSE 6.3 includes something, but it was a version BEFORE the
> journaling, so the main feature of ReiserFS is not there...

journaling is NOT the main feature of reiserfs. it has way nicer
features, that are also supposed to be stable and finished. the
journaling version has to be stabilized further before it can be used
(can't be used on a RAID for instance)

> Mandrake heard about it only a day after the code freeze of 7.0, so
> it didn't find its way into the package (Ira, please fix me if I'm
> wrong; I hope I'm wrong...).

I won't fix you, 'cause I'm not a doctor :-)
nope, I haven't seen anything about it, but I will definitely compile it
to try one day, I have a 500 meg partition set aside for it.

> There is a long time till the next RedHat (7.0, which will hopefully
> include kernel 2.4.?, XFree86-4.0, etc.).

by then, Mandrake 7.1 will be out, and hopefully reaiserfs will be in
there... but why do guys like us care really? get the sources and
compile it yourself... :)

> easily AFTER the OS already runs, ReiserFS is something which is
> very important to include in the core distribution, because of the
> following reasons:
> 
> 1. It is very hard to ADD ReiserFS to exisiting system (formats,
>    backup/restore of partitions, etc.).

like adding a new disk, and until I hear enough voices about it being
stable, I'm not gonna put my homedir on it, or the news server at work
(although it may probably be the most optimal fs for it)

> 2. Some of the features of ReiserFS are impossible when it is not a
>    part of the core OS (like using it fot the root partition).

are you saying that if I only use it for /var of /home without mounting
it under a reaserfs /, I miss features? sounds very weird, care to
elaborate?

> 3. Addition of ReiserFS to exisiting OS involves patching the kernel
>    which is a dangerous thing (don't think about the last time you
>    patched the kernel; think about the cases where two different
>    patches patch the same file, and that sometines such a thing may
>    fail).

well, experimental patches will always be a dangerous and dark process
:-) Are you saying that you won't try MOSIX because it doesn't come from
Red Hat pre-patched? reiserfs is 30k lines in the kernel, and is an
add-on (AFAIK it can even be loaded as a module with no hooks pepared),
I'm not worried really. reiserfs has little to offer the simple joe user
for now, so only power users like us will be interested for now, and we
are not afraid to compile modules (anakhnu tarnegolot im beitzim!)

> 
> 100% compatible with RedHat but to add new features, will take this
> challenge, and release a Linux distribution but with ReiserFS
> support?

maybe I prefer they stick to stable stuff that's known and not confuse
the user with more options during the install? it will be in the expert
mode one day, I know it.

to calm your nerves, I'm willing to do some partition magic with
Partition Magic(tm), copy my root, reformat to reiserfs, copy it back
and it will all take under 45 minutes and (if reiserfs is indeed that
good) it will be stable. very simple.

-- 
Ira Abramov ;  whois:IA58  ;  www.scso.com ;  all around Linux enthusiast
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
(By komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu, Mark Komarinski)


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