linux-kernel - Re: Linux 2.6.29

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Date:	Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:43:03 -0400
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	David Rees <drees76@...il.com>, Jesper Krogh <jesper@...gh.cc>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.29

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> So the fact is, "people should always use fsync" simply isn't a realistic 
> expectation, nor is it historically accurate. Claiming it is is just 
> obviously bogus. And claiming that people _should_ do it is crazy, since 
> it performs badly enough to simply not be realistic.
> 
> Alternatives should be looked at. For desktop apps, the best alternatives 
> are likely simply stronger default consistency guarantees. Exactly the 
> "we don't guarantee that your data hits the disk, but we do guarantee that 
> if you renamed on top of another file, you'll not have lost _both_ 
> contents".

On the other side of the coin, major desktop apps Firefox and 
Thunderbird already use it:  Firefox uses sqlite to log open web pages 
in case of a crash, and sqlite in turn sync's its journal as any good 
database app should.  [I think tytso just got them to use fdatasync and 
a couple other improvements, to make this not-quite-so-bad]

Thunderbird hits the disk for each email received -- always wonderful 
with those 1000-email git-commit-head downloads... :)

So, arguments about "people should..." aside, existing desktops apps 
_do_ fsync and we get to deal with the bad performance :/

	Jeff


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