Re: [Ext2-devel] [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3

Alex Tomas
2006-06-09T14:55:21Z

>>>>> Jeff Garzik (JG) writes:

JG> Alex Tomas wrote:
>>>>>>> Jeff Garzik (JG) writes:
JG> And thus, inodes are progressively incompatible with older
JG> kernels. Boot into an older kernel, and you can now only read half
JG> your filesystem (if it even allows mount at all).
>> nope, you aren't allowed to mount fs with extents-enabled files
>> by ext3 which has no the feature compiled in. the same will
>> happen if you call it ext4.

JG> This is my point... why increase user confusion by calling it ext3, then?

by default it's still old good ext3 without extents. user should
enable it explicitly. for him, this means the feature is ready
to be used anytime. the only thing he needs is to (re)mount fs
with the option. for us, this means: a) a single source tree -
easy to maintain b) we must be clear with user that the feature
isn't backward compatible

thanks, Alex

PS. in the end this is just ext3 with one more feature ...