From: rpj@fir.canberra.edu.au (Ross Johnson) Subject: Re: Packaging Linux Date: 23 Nov 1992 01:21:00 GMT
In <1992Nov20.190818.27245@samba.oit.unc.edu> jem@sunSITE.unc.edu (Jonathan Magid) writes:
>In article <1992Nov20.160444.16116@scifi.uucp> njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich) writes:
>>In article <17612@mindlink.bc.ca> Neklan_Brozensky@mindlink.bc.ca (Neklan Brozensky) writes:
>>
>>I personally think that another essential for mass-usage is going to
>>be a filesystem that doesn't require sync() or fsck. This isn't an
>>impossible task, and yes, there is a performance hit, but I don't
>>think you are going to sell a system to the masses that they can't
>>turn off whenever they want to.
>>
>This isn't really a function of the filesystem so much as U*IX-like os's
>standard use of buffer caching to speed disk access. I think that the
>performance hit for disk intensive jobs is higher than you think...
>(try dyking out the buffer cache code in the kernel, if you want to try,
>or easier put sync in the crontab to go off every second, come to think
>of it, thats a way to make a system for people who insist on no buffering)
>as for selling "a system to the masses", apart from the question of whether
>Linux could be sold to the masses and whether that is desirable I think
>that the Macintosh has sold pretty well...
>jem.
DOS PC's running smartdrive should also be added to the list OS's
needing syncing before power down (or hard reset). Incidently, on some
(most?) Unix systems there's a daemon called "update" that will do a
sync as often as you like.
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