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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!europa.clark.net!news.mathworks.com!enews.sgi.com!news.corp.sgi.com!fido.asd.sgi.com!neteng!lm From: lm@neteng.engr.sgi.com (Larry McVoy) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc Subject: Re: no such thing as a "general user community" Followup-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc Date: 29 Mar 1997 06:34:46 GMT Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 28 Message-ID: <5hid66$k6c@fido.asd.sgi.com> References: <331BB7DD.28EC@net5.net> <5goqrq$5ak$1@news.clinet.fi> <5hd29s$e7t@fido.asd.sgi.com> <5he3pp$8ms$2@kayrad.ziplink.net> <5hfh2l$i13@flea.best.net> <5hfl3n$a3t@fido.asd.sgi.com> <333C0CD6.6BD6@cet.co.jp> Reply-To: lm@slovax.engr.sgi.com NNTP-Posting-Host: neteng.engr.sgi.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:38341 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:6563 comp.sys.sgi.misc:29634 Michael Hancock (michaelh@cet.co.jp) wrote: : Margo's LFS system is a log structured fs. The logs ARE the files. Are you : saying this is how XFS works? Absolutely not. Anyone with an ounce of filesystem sense can figure out that the allocation is a huge part of the logic that goes into a file system. It is critically important that you put the data where it belongs. That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with LFS. Putting the data where the head happens to be is just plain stupid. Harsh words. I wouldn't use them if it were the efforts of an undergrad. But a PhD in operating systems should know better. There are many excellent papers which describe in great detail why allocation policy is important. The LFS folks, by telling the world that LFS is a good idea, have done all of us a disservice. Those of us who have to ship product now have to explain to managers why LFS isn't a good idea. That is NOT the sort of help I want from the research community. They should be embarressed and ashamed of themselves for this junk. We all make mistakes. We don't all try and market our mistakes as good ideas. There is a certain lack of integrity that just burns me up. XFS, like any other log based file system, uses the log exactly like a database uses the log. The data goes where it should, the transactions are logged in the log. See Ray Chen's post on the topic or read the Usenix paper for more info. -- --- Larry McVoy lm@sgi.com http://reality.sgi.com/lm (415) 933-1804