Re: Linux 2.6.29

Bodo Eggert
2009-03-28T11:53:50Z

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, Linus Torvalds wrote:

>> Yes, some editors (vi, emacs) do it, but even there it's configurable.
>
> .. and looking at history, it's even pretty modern. From the vim logs:
>
> Patch 6.2.499
> Problem: When writing a file and halting the system, the file might be lost
> when using a journalling file system.
> Solution: Use fsync() to flush the file data to disk after writing a file.
> (Radim Kolar)
> Files: src/fileio.c
>
> so it looks (assuming those patch numbers mean what they would seem to
> mean) that 'fsync()' in vim is from after 6.2 was released. Some time in
> 2004.

Besides that, it's a fix specific for /journaled/ filesystems. It's easy to see
that the same journal that was supposed to increase filesystem reliability
is CAUSING more unreliable behavior.