2002-10-31 19:18:24

by Carl-Daniel Hailfinger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

Hello Linus,

somewhere back in 2000, you wrote:
> Who still remembers xiafs? We have 33 different filesystems in the kernel
> tree - something that is quite impressive, and something that I don't
> think anybody else has ever tried to support. But we could have had 34..

Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned up and
forward ported to use the new interfaces?
And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it? Technically,
it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date might not apply.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

P.S. I do not want to start a flamewar, it's just that I understood your
mail from back then as a call for a xiafs maintainer.


2002-10-31 22:14:22

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

Followup to: <[email protected]>
By author: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <[email protected]>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Hello Linus,
>
> somewhere back in 2000, you wrote:
> > Who still remembers xiafs? We have 33 different filesystems in the kernel
> > tree - something that is quite impressive, and something that I don't
> > think anybody else has ever tried to support. But we could have had 34..
>
> Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned up and
> forward ported to use the new interfaces?
> And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it? Technically,
> it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date might not apply.
>

Not to be flippant, but really... what's the point?

-hpa
--
<[email protected]> at work, <[email protected]> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt <[email protected]>

2002-10-31 23:17:53

by Andries Brouwer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 08:22:48PM +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:

>> Who still remembers xiafs?

Ah, xiafs. Where are all these old floppies? [search]
Hmm. Exactly one left, a filesystem with 0.99pl7 vmlinux.z.

Yes, if you add xiafs again, I'll be able to read this floppy
without booting 2.0 (or 2.1.20) first.

Andries

[archaeologist]

2002-10-31 23:14:40

by Carl-Daniel Hailfinger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> > Hello Linus,
> >
> > somewhere back in 2000, you [Linus Torvalds] wrote:
> > > Who still remembers xiafs? We have 33 different filesystems in
> > > the kernel tree - something that is quite impressive, and something
> > > that I don't think anybody else has ever tried to support.
> > > But we could have had 34.
> >
> > Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned
> > up and forward ported to use the new interfaces?
> > And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it?
> > Technically, it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date
> > might not apply.
> >
>
> Not to be flippant, but really... what's the point?
>

There are several:
- Trying to fulfill what I percieve to be a wish of Linus which nobody
has cared for
- Being able to recover *very* old data without having to dig out a
compiler+computer suitable for 2.0 kernels
- Linux is supposed to be fun (The point which matters)

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

P.S. Please CC me because my subscription to lkml seems to be hosed.

2002-10-31 23:34:57

by Carl-Daniel Hailfinger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

Andries Brouwer wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 08:22:48PM +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>>>Who still remembers xiafs?
>>
>
> Ah, xiafs. Where are all these old floppies? [search]
> Hmm. Exactly one left, a filesystem with 0.99pl7 vmlinux.z.
>
> Yes, if you add xiafs again, I'll be able to read this floppy
> without booting 2.0 (or 2.1.20) first.
>
> Andries
>
> [archaeologist]

I'd like to do that, but it is not my decision if it gets included or not.
;-)

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

2002-11-01 02:32:50

by Linus Torvalds

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?


On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>
> Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned up and
> forward ported to use the new interfaces?

Quite frankly, I probably _would_ accept it, if it's cleanly done. If only
because of the fact that it's such a ridiculous thing to do, and thus gets
high points on my "surreality meter".

> And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it? Technically,
> it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date might not apply.

Yeah, I think xiafs has little to do with a feature freeze. It has little
to do with sanity too, for that matter. I saw that Andries still has one
xia floppy somewhere, and that probably puts him in a rather unique
position. I can't imagine that very many people really care, but it's a
ironic form of retrocomputing...

Linus

2002-11-01 02:43:17

by Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

Em Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 06:39:03PM -0800, Linus Torvalds escreveu:
> Yeah, I think xiafs has little to do with a feature freeze. It has little
> to do with sanity too, for that matter. I saw that Andries still has one
> xia floppy somewhere, and that probably puts him in a rather unique
> position. I can't imagine that very many people really care, but it's a
> ironic form of retrocomputing...

LOL, wait for NetBEUI patches then ;-)

- Arnaldo

2002-11-01 03:37:19

by Carl-Daniel Hailfinger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>
>>Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned up and
>>forward ported to use the new interfaces?
>
>
> Quite frankly, I probably _would_ accept it, if it's cleanly done. If only
> because of the fact that it's such a ridiculous thing to do, and thus gets
> high points on my "surreality meter".

I will do my best and get it reviewed before submitting it.

>>And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it? Technically,
>>it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date might not apply.
>
>
> Yeah, I think xiafs has little to do with a feature freeze. It has little
> to do with sanity too, for that matter.

Hey, I am insane. Sounds like the right job for me.

> I saw that Andries still has one
> xia floppy somewhere, and that probably puts him in a rather unique
> position. I can't imagine that very many people really care, but it's a
> ironic form of retrocomputing...

Andries, could you please send me an image of this floppy?


Thanks
Carl-Daniel

2002-11-01 08:35:30

by Matthias Schniedermeyer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 04:41:49AM +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> >
> >>Out of curiosity, would you reaccept xiafs in 2.5, if it was cleaned up
> >>and forward ported to use the new interfaces?
> >
> >
> >Quite frankly, I probably _would_ accept it, if it's cleanly done. If only
> >because of the fact that it's such a ridiculous thing to do, and thus gets
> >high points on my "surreality meter".
>
> I will do my best and get it reviewed before submitting it.
>
> >>And if you accept it, what's the latest date I could submit it?
> >>Technically, it is a regression, ;-) so the feature freeze date might not
> >>apply.
> >
> >
> >Yeah, I think xiafs has little to do with a feature freeze. It has little
> >to do with sanity too, for that matter.
>
> Hey, I am insane. Sounds like the right job for me.

And when you are done with xiafs you should try to reintegrate
"Extended FS". ;-)

(No i don't have anything with an extended-fs.)



Bis denn

--
Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as
bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer
wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated,
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.

2002-11-01 20:11:33

by Andries Brouwer

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 04:41:49AM +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:

> Andries, could you please send me an image of this floppy?

See ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/aeb/linux0.99pl7.xiafs

Andries

2002-11-01 22:01:26

by Carl-Daniel Hailfinger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Xiafs inclusion in 2.5?

[CC: trimmed]
Andries Brouwer wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 04:41:49AM +0100, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>
>>Andries, could you please send me an image of this floppy?
>
> See ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/aeb/linux0.99pl7.xiafs

Thanks. Btw, util-linux seems to still support xiafs. Please don't drop
support for it in 2.12.


Carl-Daniel