Re: File System conversion -- ideas

Leonard Milcin Jr.
2003-06-29T19:21:13Z

> Nrrrg. Yeah, I've got 80 gig and only CDR's to back up to, and no money.
> A CDR may read for me the day it's written, and then not work the next
> day. Still a risk.

Say, why you would want to change filesystem type?

If you have to change filesystem type, I think it is because you have a
good reason to do it. I can't imagine the reason explaining the need of
converting filesystem if you use this system as home desktop. For
ordinary user filesystem is just used for storing data and managing
permissions to that data. These are not real-time or
performance-critical systems. Thus most of the popular filesystems like
ext2, ext3, reiserfs basically fit their needs. If they choose right
filesystem type at startup, they could use it for a time of life of
their hard disk.

There are very few situations when you really need to convert
filesystem. Most of the time this operation is done by person who have
some experience with computers, and highly probable by person who has
access to additional hard disks, etc. I have never heard of one who had
to change filesystem type, and had no access to additional equipment.

I don't want to say it is not possible, to provide such a function
safely. What I want to say is that kernel developers should not
complicate filesystem code without *very* good reason. I think that
providing on-the-fly conversion capability is not a good reason. Good
reason is when you can improve usability for many users and most of the
time, not when you ease one operation needed by very few users few times
in their life, especially when they can do what they need by just
transferring their data back and forth to another disk, or machine.

Regards,

Leonard Milcin Jr.

--
"Unix IS user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are."
-- Tollef Fog Heen