Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 09 Jun 2006 16:09:03 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [Ext2-devel] [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3 |
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Theodore Tso wrote: > We don't do this with the SCSI layer where we make a complete clone of > the driver layer so that there is a /usr/src/linux/driver/scsi and > /usr/src/linux/driver/scsi2, do we? And we didn't do that with the > networking layer either, as we added ipsec, ipv6, softnet, and a whole > host of other changes and improvements. > > What we do instead is we have a series of patches, which can be made > available in various experimental trees, and as they get more > polishing and experience with people using it without any problems, > they can get merged into the -mm tree, and then eventually, when they > are deemed ready, into mainline. That is also the normal Linux > development process, and it's worked quite well up until now with ext3.
No, there is a key difference between ext3 and SCSI/etc.: cruft is removed.
In ext3, old formats are supported for all eternity.
> Folks seem to be worried about ext3 being "too important to experiment > with", but the fact remains, we've been doing continuous improvement > with ext3 for quite some time, and it's been quite smooth. The htree > introduction was essentially completely painless, for example --- and
I disagree. There were some distro annoyances as I recall.
> people liked the fact that they could get the features of indexed > directories without needing to do a complete dump and restore of the > filesystem.
Of course people always like new features. :)
ext4 should allow you to deliver new features more rapidly, while keeping the existing ext3 happily stable.
Jeff
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