Re: linux-next: manual merge of the mm-stable tree with the ext4 tree

Linus Torvalds
2023-02-24T06:08:57Z

On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 9:11 PM Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au> wrote:
>
> In which case we will have an ext4 filesystem in Linus' kernel that has
> no testing ... and if someone has done the testing, then they can at
> least supply the merge resolution that they tested.

Well, the good news is that it will have more testing than the cifs
resolution I did - if only because I actually have ext4 filesystems
that I'd test with.

I'm not claiming that's great either, of course. I think this whole
"convert from find_get_pages_range_tag() to filemap_get_folios_tag()
with very different semantics at the same time as all the writepages
work is done" was an absolutely *horrible* idea.

I actually considered doing the cifs merge by just keeping the old
format, and making a wrapper around "filemap_get_folios_tag()" that
would work one page at a time, just to avoid the whole "do two changes
at once" issue.

But then I - probably from some excessive hubris - decided I could
just rewrite the whole thing without testing, and just get it right on
the first try.

I did have DavidH's suggestion to look at, but decided that was buggy,
so mine is actually fairly different.

Yes. I do think "excessive hubris" is probably the right word choice.
But "insanity" probably also comes close ;)

Linus