From: Jan Kara Subject: Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] Drop ext2/ext3 codebase? When? Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:25:04 +0100 Message-ID: <20110214172504.GC3018@quack.suse.cz> References: <20110203144011.GA28409@quack.suse.cz> <4D4AC4E2.701@redhat.com> <20110204131739.GC4104@quack.suse.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Jan Kara , Michael Rubin , Eric Sandeen , lsf-pc@lists.linuxfoundation.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Theodore Tso To: Amir Goldstein Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ext4.vger.kernel.org On Sat 12-02-11 13:05:02, Amir Goldstein wrote: > On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Jan Kara wrote: > > > > On Thu 03-02-11 11:32:01, Michael Rubin wrote: > > > On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:08 AM, Eric Sandeen = wrote: > > > > If we can have a real plan for moving in this direction though,= I'd > > > > support it. =A0I'm just not sure how we get enough real testing= under > > > > our belts to be comfortable with dropping ext[23], especially a= s > > > > most distros now default to ext4 anyway. > > > > > > Eric what sort of testing are you looking for? > > I believe Ted wrote a good summary of what combinations of options = would > > need to be tested on a regular basis to get at least some confidenc= e that > > the switch could work. >=20 > So the problem is that people don'y have much incentive to test "ext3 > mode" as long as they have, well, ext3. >=20 > I can offer an incentive in the form of snapshots support, which may > appeal for some users, to whom performance improvements is not a good > enough reason to upgrade their fs. >=20 > Most conveniently, ext4 snapshots is short of extents and delalloc > support at the moment, but the rest of the code, which was ported fro= m > next3 is ready to be stabilized/cleaned up for submission. >=20 > So it can be claimed, that pursuing my cause, of pushing the snapshot= s > feature for early testers as soon as possible (i.e. before extent > move-on-write implementation), may also be beneficial to the cause of > getting "ext3 mode" tested by a larger number of users. >=20 > What do you say, Jan. Do you think that some of your upgrading > customers could be lured into using ext4 code if we offer them > snapshots in "ext3 mode"? Well, some people might be interested in snapshotting and might move = to ext4 for that reason but these would be mostly people installing new systems anyway, not the ones just updating older systems. So I don't fe= el this would be a major game changer...=20 Honza --=20 Jan Kara SUSE Labs, CR -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel= " in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html