Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4165 mails)

["Nicholas Parsons" <napt256@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Anders,

>>So, is ext3/ext2 the standard file system for GNU/linux?

>I don't believe you can speak of a standard. The "vanilla" kernel >has
>several file systems, and they're all interoperable, in the sense >that a
>file stored on one system can be moved to another without alteration.

That makes sense to me.  

>> If so, why spend so much time developing other kinds of 
>> filesystems like Reiser FS, XFS, JFS?

>One file system is good at one thing, another are good at different
>things. Hans Reiser & co. have very specific ideas on how to develop >a
>file system, the people at SGI have different ideas and their
>experiences with high performance graphics systems has evolved into
>present day XFS.

This is indeed true.  However how does this help a "normal" home 
PC user decide on a file system?  I don't run high performance
graphics programs on my pc.  Does this mean I definitely should 
not use XFS?

>> A file system is 
>> critical to any operating system and I think it would be 
>> much better if everyone could just focus their efforts on 
>> improving one file system. This is the case with MS Windows.
>> They started out with FAT, then moved on to FAT32 and finally 
>> are using NTFS. The same goes for other stuff in the open 
>> source community like KDE and Gnome for example. This 
>> "multiplicity" approach hurts linux as a whole. Linux software 
>> as a whole should not compete against other linux software but 
>> should compete against other OS's software.

>Head down to your local library and check out a book called "On the
>origin of species" by Charles Darwin. It may not be on the comp.sci.
>curriculum yet, but it should be.

This is certainly true for living organisms.  
I think software falls into a different category.  Focusing 
all attention on one project instead of 4 or 5 would be much 
better for the software community in the long run.  I mean what 
is the difference for a "normal" linux user between XFS and JFS?


~~Nick
 




 

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