Mike A. Harris wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, Joe Cooper wrote:
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 13:52:47 -0500
From: Joe Cooper <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Subject: Re: Reiserfs
It cannot. Red Hat is not a big fan of ReiserFS, or at least have not
been to date and don't seem too inclined to support it.
That is not an accurate picture at all. Red Hat believes in
releasing quality products that do not have known data corrupting
issues. We strive to provide solutions that our customers and
users can rely on - which has passed intense internal quality
testing. Reiserfs has not proven itself yet as rock solid in
testing, and even though many now claim it to be bug free,
reports still surface on mailing lists and in testing of data
corruption.
As I said...Red Hat doesn't seem to be a big fan of ReiserFS. ;-)
I didn't make any assertion about /why/ Red Hat are not inclined to
support it. I disagree regarding it's stability, and have been using it
on extremely large, extremely loaded web caches for almost two years
without a single data corruption problem (Chris Mason fixed the last
crasher I've seen just days before we shipped our first unit early in
2000). To make it clear, a web cache is about the most demanding load
one can place on a filesystem. But, then again, I control the hardware
that our system is installed on...and the vast majority of data
corruption reports in the past year have been due to hardware
incompatibilities or bugs.
Relax...I'm not attacking Red Hat's decision not to provide a ReiserFS
ready system. It's their job to make a solid distribution of components
they are comfortable with. I usually trust their judgement on things,
and when I don't I have my reasons.
Keep in mind there is no benefit to excluding something like
reiserfs 'just because'. There are very sound technical reasons
why it is only supported as experimental right now.
It goes without saying that RH has their reasons. And I had no
intention of complaining about it. Just stating a fact. It doesn't
bother me...my kickstart install takes care of getting the new kernel
installed (with ReiserFS compiled in, and checks turned off). I don't
need root filesystems to be Reiser, so I don't fret over whether Red Hat
supports it.
The kernel does have ReiserFS compiled in as a module, so
ReiserFS can be used once the system has rebooted. Note,
however, that it is compiled with REISERFS_CHECK enabled, which
is generally not a good idea for production kernels (not sure
why Red Hat have done so).
Because we do not feel that the data corruption that many
customers are likely to experience with this experimental support
is something that we can consider "good". By having the checks
in place, those brave enough to experiment with reiserfs that
have problems, will now also have useful debugging data, etc.
with which bugs in reiserfs can be found and fixed which will
result in reiserfs being less buggy sooner, and actually a
supported filesystem, which i believe is what everyone is wanting
no?
Heheheh... My clients aren't beta testers.
Of course, I'm basing this assertion on the Rawhide kernel,
rather than the one that ships with 7.1 so maybe I'm wrong.
They both AFAIR enable the checks - to help find and fix bugs.
Linux doesn't just run on small home computers and small
businesses anymore. It runs on big iron also, and quality and
reliability across the board trumps whiz-bang features IMHO.
I won't claim to be shipping big iron...but I've shipped the biggest x86
hardware available, all running ReiserFS with good results. Since
ReiserFS is only complete on x86 platforms, I must assume this is the
big iron to which you refer...
Hopefully this clears up any bad impressions you may have
misunderstood about reiserfs inclusion.
Actually, I don't think I had any misunderstandings. I am glad to know
that Red Hat doesn't enable checks just to be irritating, though! ;-)
Anyway, I think you got my message all wrong. I was just pointing out
the issues that seemed obvious to me could cause problems for someone
wanting to install boxes with ReiserFS for production use. I like Red
Hat and barring the problems of x.0 releases, I've got no complaints.
Not even about ReiserFS not being supported for installs.
--
Joe Cooper <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Affordable Web Caching Proxy Appliances
http://www.swelltech.com
