Re: the " 'official' point of view" expressed by kernelnewbies.org regarding reiser4 inclusion

Jeffrey V. Merkey
2006-08-01T00:09:49Z

Nate Diller wrote:

> On 7/31/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Nate Diller wrote:
>>
>> > On 7/31/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > On 7/31/06, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> Its well accepted that reiserfs3 has some robustness problems
>> in the
>> >> >> face of physical media errors. The structure of the file system
>> >> and the
>> >> >> tree basis make it very hard to avoid such problems. XFS appears
>> >> to have
>> >> >> managed to achieve both robustness and better data structures.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> How reiser4 compares I've no idea.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Citation?
>> >> >
>> >> > I ask because your clam differs from the only detailed research
>> that
>> >> > I'm aware of on the subject[1]. In figure 2 of the iron filesystems
>> >> > paper that Ext3 is show to ignore a great number of data-loss
>> inducing
>> >> > failure conditions that Reiser3 detects an panics under.
>> >> >
>> >> > Are you sure that you aren't commenting on cases where Reiser3
>> alerts
>> >> > the user to a critical data condition (via a panic) which leads
>> to a
>> >> > trouble report while ext3 ignores the problem which suppresses the
>> >> > trouble report from the user?
>> >> >
>> >> > *1) http://www.cs.wisc.edu/adsl/Publications/iron-sosp05.pdf
>> >>
>> >> Hi Gregory, Wikimedia Foundation and LKML?
>> >>
>> >> How's Wikimania going. :-)
>> >>
>> >> What he says is correct. I have seen some serious issues with
>> reiserfs
>> >> in terms of stability and
>> >> data corruption. Resier is however FASTER, but the statement is has
>> >> robustness issues is accurate.
>> >> I was using reiserfs but we opted to make EXT3 the default for Solera
>> >> appliances, even when using Suse 10
>> >> due to issues I have seen with data corruption and hard hangs on
>> RAID 0
>> >> read/write sector errors. I have
>> >> stopped using it for local drives and based everything on EXT3.
>> Not to
>> >> say it won't get there eventually, but
>> >> file systems have to endure a lot of time in the field and deployment
>> >> befor they are ready for prime time.
>> >>
>> >> The Wikimedia appliances use Wolf Mountain, and I've tested it for
>> about
>> >> 4 months with few problems, but
>> >> I only use it for hosting the Cherokee Langauge Wikipedia. It's
>> >> performance is several magnitudes better
>> >> than either EXT3 or ReiserFS. Despite this, for vertical wiki
>> servers,
>> >> its ok to go out with, folks can specifiy
>> >> whether they want appliances with EXT3, Reiser, or WMFS, but iit's a
>> >> long way from being "cooked"
>> >> completely, though it does scale to 1 exabyte FS images.
>> >
>> >
>> > i've seen you mention the Wolf Mountain FS in other emails, but google
>> > isn't telling me a lot about it. Do you have a whitepaper? are there
>> > any published benchmark results? what sort of workloads do you
>> > benchmark?
>> >
>> > NATE
>> >
>> Wikipedia is the app for now. I have not done any benchmarks on the FS
>> side, just the capture side, and its been transferred to
>> another entity. I have no idea what they are naming it to, but I expect
>> you may hear about it soon. One of the incarnations
>> of it is Solera's DSFS which can be reviewed here:
>>
>> www.soleranetworks.com
>
>
> so this is a single stream, write only? ...
>
>> I can sustain 850 MB/S throughput from user space with it -- about 5 x
>> any other FS. On some hardware, I've broken
>> the 1.25 GB/S (gigabyte/second) windows with it.
>
>
> and you're saying it scales to much higher multi-spindle
> single-machine throughput. cool.
>
> i'd love to see a whitepaper, or failing that, have an off-list
> discussion of your approach and the various kernel limitations you ran
> up against in testing. i don't suppose they invited you to the Kernel
> Summit to talk about it, heh.
>
> NATE
>
The patents have been filed for over a year, and will publish in several
weeks at uspto.gov -- that's the only acclaim I care for --
one that results in value for the industry and more patent protection
for Linux and profits for folks. No, I have not been invited
to the summit, probably because of the lawsuit I filed against some
folks who were threatening my family -- Peter Anvin booted
me off Kernel.org after allowing folks to pinch my code and copy my bash
history files all over the internet, and several folks
have stiffed me. I could care less. I keep creating cool technology,
make tons of money off of it, and I have cultivated an
excellent relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation, and I am now the
principal contributor on the Cherokee Wikipedia. Wales
even deleted the article folks had used to smear me and made folks
rewrite it. Wales is a very nice man and good dude.

I am content to contribute to Linux from a business viewpoint, and if
the treatment I received from Anvin is par for kernel.org accounts,
I don't care for one -- IP addresses are rather cheap on the
internet. I was and have remained loyal to Linux through it all.

I am appreciative of your interest. Check uspto.gov in next few weeks
for published applications, it's all described there, distributed
architecture and all.

All my Wikilove.

Jeff