*BSD News Article 88551


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From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@indy.celebration.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 11:39:18 -0800
Organization: AT&T
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <32FB84E6.3DB9@indy.celebration.net>
References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <slrn5fejrn.353.bet@onyx.interactive.net> <5d8f4p$jto@junkie.gnofn.org> <5dd5n7$72n@innocence.interface-business.de> <5ddgno$nlb@dutch.eng.ox.ac.uk>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:82713 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2337

Paul D Thomas wrote:
> 
> In article <5dd5n7$72n@innocence.interface-business.de>,
> J Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de> wrote:
> >craig@gnofn.org (Craig Johnston) wrote:
> >I think this argument most often arises out of the different default
> >filesystem behaviour.  Sure, it's noticeable if you do a large rm -r,
> >or tarring off a tape that creates numerous small files.  OTOH, it's a
> >well-known attitude that most of the FreeBSD hackers vote for keeping
> >the current default of sync metadata writes (and we don't need to
> >create *that* discussion here again), so we won't change it.  I'm
> 
> The reason we have async writes in linux (metadata gets written more
> regularly, though) is that it is faster and *reliable*.  We have idiots
> here who try and reboot the linux machines to get windows without doing
> a proper shutdown---linux just automatically fscks when it restarts
> and there is no problem.
> 
> I have never seen corruption of the filesystem which can't be repaired
> by fsck.
> 
I can say the same thing about FreeBSD, but that doesn't take into
account
the problems that happen if you power down the system at the wrong time.
(Or crash for some reason.)  I haven't lost any data when using async
writes on FreeBSD, and I'll bet you my system crashes more often than
almost anyones :-).  It is riskier to allow async writes though, and
starting with REL-2.2, the code will let you run kind-of like Linux if
you want.

John