reiser4 and the overnet command line client

[neenee <neeneelaatmaar@gmx.net>]

hi there.

from last night, till this morning, my system was copying files to and fro,
since i chose to switch from reiser4 to xfs.

my reason was not that i did not enjoy using the filesystem, or that i had
major problems with it.

it's just that i enjoy trying out different kernel patches, such as con
koliva's ck-patchset, and since this patch is sometimes based on a vanilla
kernel, i had to patch in reiser4 myself, which lately did not work well
at all.

so, i decided to switch to another filesystem. xfs was what i selected.

switching went without a hitch.

but i'll skip some of the pleasantries, and move on to my reason for posting
on this mailing-list.

i suspect there is a sync-problem with reiser4, or at least a feature with
which not all programs are compatible yet.

i am a frequent user of peer-to-peer clients, amongst which is the overnet
command line client, which i control using a gui.

when i was using reiser4, i had a problem with this client:

when i started a download, it would create temporary files. downloading
went fine as long as i kept the client running. but when i closed the client,
either to reboot to update my kernel to the lateset ck-patchset version or
to just play some online game with an acceptable ping, and restarted the
client again when i was done with that, downloads would not resume;

it was as if the downloads were never started. i checked the temp dir of
the overnet client, and the temp files were there. but they were not used.
restarting the same downloads would just create new temp files and closing
the client would make those new downloads vanish from everywhere except the
temp dir.

i asked around and checked the overnet forums, but no one else had this
problem. i gave up on overnet after a bit, and moved on to other things.

this morning, after the switch to xfs, i tried overnet again, because i had
a thought that there might be something with how reiser4 synced to disk less
than other filesystems (at least, that's what i think it does).

to my surprise, overnet worked fine now; the temp files were used after re-
starting the client.

now, i'm not blaming reiser4 for this problem, but i do find it a bit sus-
picious that i do not have the problem with a different filesystem.

when i talked about this situation with some people, one of the users sug-
gested that i post on this mailing-list; to report this 'bug' if you will.

the steps to reproduce this problem are:

1. start overnet command line client.
2. start a download.
3. close the client.
4. start the client and see that it does not resume/use the temp files.

i hope this report is of any use. keep up the good work :)

- Joost Hillen.

---
have you hugged your penguin today?