From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Geert Uytterhoeven Subject: Re: Hardlink Pitfalls (was: Patches for REALLY TINY 386 kernels) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:43:43 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: References: <200707161722.53203.a1426z@gawab.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: Al Boldi Return-path: In-Reply-To: <200707161722.53203.a1426z@gawab.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Al Boldi wrote: > Satyam Sharma wrote: > > Or just "cp -al" to create multiple trees at (almost) no disk cost > > that won't interfere with each other in any way, and makes the > > development process / generating patchsets trifle easier as well ... > > That would be correct if hardlinks would actually do a CoW on modify, instead > of misleading the user into thinking he is modifying an independent file. > > Moral of the story: try to avoid hardlinks as much as possible! Or use a different user account. I used to have `all' Linux kernel source trees hardlinked where possible, as special user `src'. So I could create a `cp -rl' copy under my own account and get an error when trying to modify a file. Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds