From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Mike Snitzer" Subject: Re: [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3 Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 17:51:48 -0400 Message-ID: <170fa0d20606091451h91c1fe3m2fe8839699008c60@mail.gmail.com> References: <44898EE3.6080903@garzik.org> <4489A7ED.8070007@garzik.org> <20060609195750.GD10524@thunk.org> <20060609203803.GF3574@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> <20060609205036.GI7420@redhat.com> <20060609210934.GH3574@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: To: "Dave Jones" , "Theodore Tso" , "Jeff Garzik" , "Alex Tomas" , "Andrew Morton" , ext2-devel , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "Linus Torvalds" , cmm@us.ibm.com, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, "Andreas Dilger" In-Reply-To: <20060609210934.GH3574@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> Content-Disposition: inline List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: ext2-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net Errors-To: ext2-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On 6/9/06, Joel Becker wrote: > On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 04:50:36PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 01:38:03PM -0700, Joel Becker wrote: > > > that the older code cannot read. Alex claims people just shouldn't use > > > "-o extents", but the fact is their distro will choose it for them. > > > > .. on partitions over a certain size, which couldn't be read with > > older ext3 filesystems _anyway_ > > Certainly that would be fine. Is that what will actually > happen? Experience says no. Even if you get it right in your distro, > not all distros will. Heck, can you promise me that your distro will > provide e2fsprogs updates to its older releases so that multiboot will > continue to work? If the kernel were bound by all the stakeholders' ability to _always_ "do the right thing" very little innovation would be possible. These tenuous arguments of hypothetical (ab)users are tiresome. If the distro vendor did default to ext3+extents and it screwed your hypothetical extents-naive user (booting a non-vendor kernel isn't something your mom is going to do) then they strayed too far from their Linux comfort-zone. If worst came to worst _THE UPDATED EXT3UTILS WOULD PREVENT MOUNTING AN EXT3 FS WITH AN INCOMPATIBLE FEATURE_. God forbid the naive-user get an error when they try something they shouldn't.