*BSD News Article 62367


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.system
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From: stren@netcom.com (Sam Trenholme)
Subject: Re: The better (more suitable)Unix?? FreeBSD or Linux
Message-ID: <strenDMxJ0H.L2s@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <4er9hp$5ng@orb.direct.ca> <jlemonDMtpAz.3rJ@netcom.com> <4g0l6o$gcl@park.uvsc.edu> <4g2213$e3f@cebaf4.cebaf.gov>
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 16:55:28 GMT
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Sender: stren@netcom21.netcom.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:14496 comp.os.linux.development.system:18201

>They are only unsafe if the system crashes.  My experience
>with Linux is that it _doesn't_crash_.  

I have managed to crash Linux in the following ways:

1) Giving the wrong arguments to memcpy() with a 1.2.12 (I believe) kernel

2) Moving a window down while copying the Slackware distribution from a 
   Orchid CD in a 1.3.18 kernel

3) General problems with running my cheap motherboard for days on end, but 
   those don't appear to eb Linux's fault.

OBFilesystemDebate:

I have gained the following insights from this heated debate:

1) How to mount an ext2 filesystem "sync"

2) Where to get some academic papers on why syncing metadata may be a good 
   idea.  OTOH, many claim it makes no difference, except in speed.

3) The fact that FreeBSD, though stuck to a 4k block size (yuck, from a 
news feed perspective-- 512-byte blocks would not be too small, but 
ext2's default 1024 is acceptable), seems to have 1k "fregments". DOes 
this mean 4 1k postings will only take up one block?

If not, I think not supporting a 1k block size, just so that a 4 gig file
can be referenced with only dual-indirection, is silly. Since I deal with
64meg+ files so rarely, I would rather have the smaller block size, and
have less slack on my news archive, than have better huge-file
performance. 

Of course, with FreeBSD adding ext2 support, hopefully this issue will
become moot. Ideally, FreeBSD's ext2 will be done right (whatever that
means), and not just there to run the occasional Linux file system it
comes across. 

I am also glad to see that read-write hpfs is in the works for Linux.  

And, there also is an NTFS driver for Linux:

http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de:80/~loewis/ntfs/

I wonder if Linux will be able to mount Mac and Amiga filesystems next?

With Zip drives around, these are things that are becoming useful.

I also wish people would agree on a filesystem with decent LFN support.
VFAT doesn't count. :-)

I wish I had the time/skill to add a driver like this.

-- 
Sam Trenholme - stren@netcom.com - http://ucsee/eecs/berkeley/edu/~set - LINUX!