XFS in Fedora Core 2

[Jeremy Katz]

On Fri, 2003-12-19 at 10:04 +0100, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 01:03:57AM -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > If the kernel side is there, there's not much reason not to build the
> > utilities...  I'll try to throw them into rawhide this weekend.
> 
> Please have a look at the userland tools packaged at
> http://atrpms.physik.fu-berlin.de/name/xfs/.  Hopefully this will ease
> throwing them into rawhide :)

Thanks, flagged and didn't delete this message so that hopefully I won't
forget to look there first :)

> > > - how about support in the installer? (anaconda)
> > 
> > The code has basically been in anaconda for ages now, just lacking all
> > of the other support pieces like the kernel and userspace tools.  Well,
> > and without those pieces, it's been untested so there are likely weird
> > things lurking ;)
> 
> rawhide's 2.6 kernel has enabled XFS for some time now, and userland
> tools will land this weekend :), this should give enough time for
> testing anaconda XFS bits until the end of January, so it makes it
> into FC2 test1?

It's entirely a question of time.  There's only one of me and I'm
actually moving at some point in January, which is sort of going to
throw my life into shambles for a little while :/   I'll do what I can,
though.  At the very least, I'll try to have it with the 'linux xfs'
side tested once ;)

> > > And finally, is there any reason to hide so cautiously the other
> > > filesystems in the installer? A regular user would never find them,
> > > because everything is hidden unless arcane options are passed to the
> > > bootloader.
[snip]
> > So, I'm not necessarily against the idea, but it does have implications
> > on testing and "support" that make me a little uneasy.
> 
> How about flagging it in anaconda as experimental for FC2? At least
> the user has a graphical choice and knows he is potentially running
> into his doom.

There's no good way to show that a filesystem is "experimental".  Either
it works and you support people using it and then can show it or you
don't want people to accidentally use it (which the command line option
is a reasonable way to do).  I know that flagging things as EXPERIMENTAL
is the norm when configuring a kernel, but I would argue that kernel
configuration isn't a good user experience ;)

Cheers,

Jeremy