On Sunday 13 April 2003 19:29, Nicholas Parsons wrote: <SNIP>
So, is ext3/ext2 the standard file system for GNU/linux?
Well, sort-of defacto, I suppose, does the LSB say anything about fs choice?
If so, why spend so much time developing other kinds of filesystems like Reiser FS, XFS, JFS?
Choice, versatility, ...
A file system is critical to any operating system
You're partly right, the fs is critical to the intended function of the machine, different fs's have different capabilities wrt: - how they handle large files or many small files; - how much performance impact they have; - data security and integrity; - ...
and I think it would be much better if everyone could just focus their efforts on improving one file system.
And optimize in which direction? Large databases with many random accesses, or video streamers with potentially huge but sequentially accessed files? Do we impose strict security and heavy integrity checking on a floppy?
This is the case with MS Windows. They started out with FAT, then moved on to FAT32 and finally are using NTFS.
And all three of these are sooooo efficient and robust, eh?
The same goes for other stuff in the open source community like KDE and Gnome for example.
And any well written app aimed at the one will function happily on the other...
This "multiplicity" approach hurts linux as a whole.
On the contrary - it is the wellspring of creativity and progress.
Linux software as a whole should not compete against other linux software but should compete against other OS's software.
I run ext3 throughout - no problems that fsck can't fix. Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg