linux-kernel - Re: Linux 2.6.29

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Message-ID: <49D0DE9A.309@garzik.org>
Date:	Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:00:42 -0400
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	Mark Lord <lkml@....ca>
CC:	Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@...hat.com>,
	"Andreas T.Auer" <andreas.t.auer_lkml_73537@...us.ath.cx>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>,
	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

Mark Lord wrote:
> Ric Wheeler wrote:
>> Mark Lord wrote:
>>> Ric Wheeler wrote:
> ..
>>> The kernel can crash, and the drives, in practice, will still
>>> flush their caches to media by themselves.  Within a second or two.
>>
>> Even with desktops, I am not positive that the drive write cache 
>> survives a kernel crash without data loss. If I remember correctly, 
>> Chris's tests used crashes (not power outages) to display the data 
>> corruption that happened without barriers being enabled properly.
> ..
> 
> Linux f/s barriers != drive write caches.
> 
> Drive write caches are an almost total non-issue for desktop users,
> except on the (very rare) event of a total, sudden power failure
> during extended write outs.
> 
> Very rare.

Heck, even I have lost power on a plane, while a laptop in laptop mode 
was flushing out work.  Not that rare.


> Yes, a huge problem for server farms.  No question.
> But the majority of Linux systems are probably (still) desktops/notebooks.

But it doesn't really matter who is what majority, does it?  At the 
present time at least, we have not designated any filesystems "desktop 
only", nor have we declared Linux a desktop-only OS.

Any generalized decision that hurts servers to help desktops would be 
short-sighted.  Robbing Peter, to pay Paul, is no formula for OS success.

	Jeff



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