[ NOTE: I'm putting this off-topic thread back on the Ext3 list,
temporarily, as I hope _someone_else_ can help this gentleman better
than I have. With each response I get 10 more questions, 5 of them
have already been answered and another 5 that utterly confuses me on
what he is trying to accomplish, because he's changing his
priorities (to often conflicting ones). ]
"IT3 Stuart Blake Tener, USNR-R" wrote:> Bryan:
> Out of curiosity, do you have any idea when the 2.5 kernel will
> be ready for release?
You're kidding me here, right? You've said you've been around Linux
for awhile, but I'm not getting a feeling that is the full story,
given this and previous questions.
A number of 2.5 developments will be backported to 2.4 in due time,
well before 2.5 is released as 2.6 (or 3.0). The same thing
happened with 2.3 and 2.2.
> I have spoken to one of my customers about switching to XFS,
> and we are going to do it next chance we get.
Why? If their current solution is working for them, why change?
> Though I am not sure if XFS can be installed from the SuSE 7.3
> SPARC edition (he runs it on an Ultra 5).
Okay, hold on a second. You've been splintering off like a madman
all over the place on this JFS stuff. Slow down and let's review
what you want again:
1. You disliked Ext3, and were looking for a ReiserFS installer for
RedHat.
2. You got several suggestions confirming that you should seek SuSE
for ReiserFS, possibly Mandrake.
3. You said you wanted to use RedHat for whatever reason. So I
mentioned XFS as a possible solution, since SGI releases it for
RedHat.
4. Now you're all over kernel 2.5, despite my trying to clarify
that 2.4 will benefit from 2.5 developments before 2.5 is finished.
5. You have seemed to totally forgotten my point that I only
suggested XFS because you wanted a non-Ext3 JFS for RedHat with
installer support.
6. Now you're back to talking about getting XFS for SuSE, on SPARC
none-the-less!
Dude, you're throwing _way_too_many_variables_ into the mix! What
_exactly_ are your priorties here??? Your questions are now
_self_conflicting_ with your previous correspondence. I guess I
need to lay out some "final suggestions" for you:
A. If you like RedHat, and want install-time JFS support, stick
with either RedHat-supported Ext3 or consider SGI's XFS add-on
releases with their modified installer.
B. If you like ReiserFS, run SuSE.
C. If you want the latest of everything on a non-production system,
consider Mandrake which includes support for all 4 JFS': Ext3,
ReiserFS, JFS and XFS).
D. If you have a SPARC, run Solaris -- worth the price IMHO (it's
built for the platform).
Don't make this more complicated than they are, and approach your
choices with clearly laid out goals. I don't know about you, but it
is _obvious_to_me_ that you have _no_idea_ what you are trying to
accomplish. I mean, one second you say you only want to stick with
RedHat, then we moved onto SuSE.
You need stop and evaluate XFS _first_, _before_ throwing everything
in that direction.
> I plan to download this ISO (amungst a few others) over the
> weekend or on Monday.
Please do so. That will tell you if like the installer if you want
to stick with RedHat. I cannot tell you what you want to use.
Again, you're going off in all sorts of directions. You need stop,
think about what you _need_ and then _evaluate_ from there.
> The big problem with all these Linux filesystems is how
> difficult it is to grow them once they are laid out on
> disk. Linux needs some real disk utilities like Partition
> magic to be able to do the same things for Linux.
First off, Ext2/3 and XFS have such utilities already -- ones that
work on a _live_ system (except for the partition not being
mounted). This is _unlike_ Partition Magic on Windows which needs
to boot into DOS for most things (and that's a bitch on NT/2000/XP).
Secondly, I do *NOT* recommend "resizing" in general, I don't
trust
it no matter how "bug free" they say it all is. And it is
relatively _unnecessary_ in UNIX thanx to directory-based filesystem
mounting, symbolic links as well as LVM (logical volume management)
anyway. I usually copy files over instead. "Resizing" is just not
worth it IMHO -- especially on UNIX which is already flexible
enough.
Third, running a hard drive at over 90% capacity will choke your
performance very quickly due to fragmentation and management
issues. Consider an upgrade to 30GB, which is not much more than
the price of the SuSE Professional boxed set anyway. If you need to
transfer files directly between the drives, get a pair of 2.5" to
3.5" ATA converters and do it on a desktop.
-- Bryan
P.S. Sorry to have embarrased you here, but I hope someone else can
help you because I obviously can't!
P.P.S. Please don't mail me off-list anymore on this. I'm sorry I
tried to help you, but you obviously don't know what you want or
what you need, much less know what your priorities are. Your
correspondence is conflicting in many areas.
--
Bryan J. Smith, Engineer mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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