Milan Jurik wrote:
Hi Erik,
Erik Trimble píše v st 09. 12. 2009 v 01:35 -0800:
Milan Jurik wrote:
Hi Thomas,
Thomas Maier-Komor píše v st 09. 12. 2009 v 09:32 +0100:
There is no technical reason, only limited manpower, why OSol cannot
support ext2/ext3. On-disk format is stable and documented and here is
the solution:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+ext3/
SMB/NFS is good for migration if you have 2 systems but for small
business and dualboot it is not good enough.
How is small business relevant?
Small business with one fileserver. Some of them cannot buy another
system only for data migration, they migrate data inside one box (I
participated on such activities few times). "Small" means few people
company but sometimes with large amount of data (like some Public
Relations companies, graphic studios etc.).
That's insane. Nobody can do this - you can't expect to do a OS
migration without having blank disks to install the new OS onto. Even
then, you don't move between two major OSes and keep the old disk(s) in
the previous OS's native filesystem, for use later as data partitions.
When moving from Windows2000 server to Windows2003 server, they
recommend you wipe and reformat any NTFS partitions. Switching Linux
distros usually results in migrating ext2/3 versions on partitions.
You back up the data on the machine, wipe it, and install the new OS.
A small business server costs under $2k these days for a decent one, $5k
for a beefy one. Businesses that can't afford those costs can't afford
to do a migration. Manpower costs alone to do the migration exceed
either of those. And, honestly, OpenSolaris isn't targeted at someone
who can't afford to pay for a modest new machine every couple of years.
Doing a OS migration on a single, non-redundant machine while retaining
the original OS isn't a realistic rational scenario. Doesn't mean it
can't be done in some OSes. Doesn't mean it SHOULD be done, even on
those OSes.
I simply can't seem to think of a reason why ext2/3/4 support is really
useful for OpenSolaris; all the scenarios I can come up with can be
equally served by using ISO or FAT or network sharing, or, frankly, the
situation is contrived.
Will you share your documentation in dualboot on FAT partition on your
laptop? Based on poor quality of FAT design and FAT implementation in
OSol, no, thanks.
Best regards,
Milan
Once again, you don't do this. Nobody installs two completely different
OSes onto the same partition, let alone two OSes that share virtually
identical directory structures, so you certainly wouldn't be installing
Linux and OpenSolaris on the same partition. Hell, you're not supposed
to even do that with Windows. And, I forget the last time anyone
rationally intended to install the root partition as FAT - I think I
remember possibly doing that on Linux sometime around 1995, and even
Windows hasn't recommended FAT as the C: drive for about a decade now.
With a laptop or any other dual-boot situation, the rational thing to do
is one partition per OS (i.e. one for Windows, one for OpenSolaris,
maybe one for Linux if you're really feeling weird), and a separate one
formatted in FAT as the data partition. And, there's nothing wrong with
the OSol FAT implementation. It's worked fine for years.
Yes, there are lots of scenarios where you COULD want it. Just like I
COULD want to add a jet engine to my Honda.
If someone really wants to add ext2/3/4 support, I'm not going to stop
them. But I'm certainly not seeing any real use case outside the
fringe-hobbyist niche, and nothing that would justify spending any
non-volunteer time to support.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
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