Re: Another bcachefs version downgrade bug

[Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>]

Hi Carl, hi Malte, hi,

Malte Schröder - 19.10.24, 10:13:08 MESZ:
> On 19/10/2024 02:15, Carl E. Thompson wrote:
> > If you tell me you don't want me testing bcachefs anymore it won't
> > hurt my feelings and I'll respect your wishes. There are plenty of
> > quality filesystems for me to use where I'll have less hassle. But
> > I'd suggest to you that pushing out testers who point out bugs and
> > try to offer constructive criticism isn't the best way to make
> > quality software.
>
> I think in your case the developer of the fs is the wrong person to
> complain to. The issues you are reporting have looong been fixed but
> apparently your distro neglected to provide these fixes to its users. So
> if you are stuck with a 6.9 series kernel, well, bcachefs was really
> not ready for daily use back then. 6.11 is fine, 6.12 seems to fix the
> last issue I was seeing. So I think the options you have are: get a
> newer kernel and/or choose a different fs.

While I certainly do not agree with Kent on everything – and also not with 
the tone of some conversations –, I agree here about the basic situation:

BCacheFS is marked experimental. My take with that is: As long as it is 
marked experimental and you like to test it and give feedback, it is 
important to move quickly enough to new kernel versions. It was and partly 
still is the same with BTRFS. Developers often asked users to use a newer 
kernel. Feedback on BCacheFS on 6.9 is quite likely not very useful to 
Kent and other BCacheFS developers while they already work on what to 
bring in for 6.13.

It reminds me of an annoying issue with appointment reminders in KDE's 
Plasma and one frustrated bug reporter expecting to fix the issue in the 
version of the software it occured in. Due to the nature of the 
implementation of restoring lost functionality the fix had some familiarity 
with a new feature and was more than 100 lines changed in different files. 
While I certainly get that it has been frustrating for the user, cause the 
issue was annoying for me as well… I would not expect and basically demand 
on how developers use their free time. Of course, Carl, in case you 
support Kent financially regarding BCacheFS development… then that may be a 
bit of a different story, but once kernels are out of stable support… I'd 
still agree with Kent.

Best,
-- 
Martin