Feature Request

[Samuel Flory]

Ethan Bonick wrote:

>
>I was talking about admin config tools not install time config options. I
>just want to have more than one choice when installing, you know something
>like two or three choices. But then how many do you stop at to not have
>too many but be enough to please most? It's a very complicated issue. I am
>fine with ext3 being the default journal. 
>

  I for one am not okay with ext3 as the default, and only journalling 
files system.  Let's face it the default ext3 journaling mode is 
extremely slow on writes.  As you can see below reiserfs is x2 as fast 
on writes, and x1.5 as fast on reads.  Writeback mode isn't much 
better.  And ext3 is even worse on random file system access.

Reiserfs:
+ dd if=/dev/zero of=bigfile bs=1024000 count=2048
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out

real    1m16.632s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m12.580s
+ sync

real    0m24.649s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.320s
+ dd of=/dev/null if=bigfile bs=1024000 count=2048
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out

real    0m36.065s
user    0m0.010s
sys     0m10.690s
+ sync
+ du -sh bigfile
2.0G    bigfile


ext3:
+ dd if=/dev/zero of=bigfile bs=1024000 count=3072
3072+0 records in
3072+0 records out

real    2m15.430s
user    0m0.010s
sys     0m20.900s
+ sync

real    0m32.166s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.190s
+ dd of=/dev/null if=bigfile bs=1024000
3072+0 records in
3072+0 records out

real    0m54.577s
user    0m0.010s
sys     0m16.070s


ext2 in writeback mode
+ dd if=/dev/zero of=bigfile bs=1024000 count=3072
3072+0 records in
3072+0 records out

real    2m12.781s
user    0m0.020s
sys     0m20.080s
+ sync

real    0m25.971s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.300s
+ dd of=/dev/null if=bigfile bs=1024000
3072+0 records in
3072+0 records out

real    0m55.136s
user    0m0.020s
sys     0m15.430s
+ sync

real    0m0.011s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s
+ du -sh bigfile
3.0G    bigfile

-- 
Once you have their hardware. Never give it back.
(The First Rule of Hardware Acquisition)
Sam Flory  <sflory at rackable.com>