Re: [PATCH 2/2] Fix console handling during suspend/resume

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

On Tuesday 20 June 2006 9:22 pm, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> Let's cut right to the chase:
>  - I think "image save" is snapshotting
>  - I think snapshotting is well-defined (and possibly useful) without any 
>    suspend activity what-so-ever.
>  - I think that anybody who confuses and mixes the two is (a) missing the 
>    real potential of snapshotting, but even more importantly (b) making it 
>    much more complex by having the wrong mental model.

Preaching to the choir here.  Snapshotting gets interest on the low end
as a way to accelerate system startup, and on the high end as a way to
enable checkpoint+failover as a high-availability tool.  (Don't restart
that month-long simulation run the day before completion; just restore
the last checkpoint before the backhoe powered down that part of the city.)

So a snapshot mechanism that decouples from swsusp would be a Good Thing.

- Dave


> Mental models are supremely important. Often you can say that they don't 
> actually matter, because the end result should be the same, but the fact 
> is, they have a huge impact on _how_ people think, and on how you get to 
> the end result.