Posted by
Hemos
on from the interesting-read dept.
Clyde writes "Hans Reiser speaks in this interview with BeOpen.com about the challenges/advantages of transcontinental software development, the Dodge City business environment of turn of the century Moscow, and the prospect of ReiserFS making it into [Linux kernel version] 2.4 just in time.
"
Well, I've been using ReiserFS on my linux workstation, and on my server now for the past 4-6 months now without serious problems. I've had no complaints about it - it manages small files exceptionally well - and won't bork if you power the server off suddenly during a kernel compile... assuming of course you enable journalling. File I/O performance is right on par with ext2 in my experience, both with slower 5400 RPM drives (my server has 4 IDE drives on it) and the Quantum Atlas IV 9.1 gigger I got now - 7200 RPMs of Ultra160 lovin'. I have had no problems with either of them
I think the filesystem got off to a bad start with some political / personal issues, and there was apparently alittle snafu on the main kernel list, but I'm glad to see it is all working out - the "beta" reiserfs was more than stable enough for the worst I could deal up with it - I stuck qmail on it and pumped in about 500,000 e-mails over the course of an hour... they all came back out, minus three which blackholed and one which was a dup. Not bad, considering it did all that/very/ quickly.. and the system was even kinda-sorta responsive while I was doing that.:)
It's also being funded by mp3.com so I rather expect it to reach industrial strength reliability.. but I took the plunge and didn't regret it. Then again, I don't do massive data warehousing.. so YMMV.
* xfs is very nice all around and thoroughly tested on SGIs, but since it's a port that isn't very integrated into the kernel, the patch is *ugly* and scary. I haven't used it on linux yet.
* reiserfs is fast and sweet, but I lost some data (recoverable, but still annoying) to a couple of development versions in reiserfs 3.6.* and linux 2.3.99pre*.
* ext3 does journalling of everything right now, not just metadata, so it's slow.
There's also IBM's JFS, about which I know nothing.
ReiserFS is by far the most mature of the three (well, four if you count JFS, which you missed). XFS probably won't see the light of day (or the light of night when dealing with kernel hackers, I suppose) until 2.5; someone might kinda sorta get ready to start considering how to start thinking about looking at ext3 by 2.7 or so; and I haven't a clue how JFS is doing.
So that leaves ReiserFS. It's not extraordinarily stable yet (and from what I hear, it's not even ordinarily stable, relatively speaking), but it does the job for a lot of people. Somewhere along 2.4, it'll get stable enough that it becomes the Cool Thing To Do (kind of like Linux itself), and everyone and their dog will be running ReiserFS.
Since ReiserFS offers no glaring technical deficiencies when compared to the other three, it will probably be the most popular until the end of time (or at least until something new comes along). Not to say that ext3, JFS and XFS won't be popular, but I would guess that they'll never be as popular as ReiserFS with Linux users.
What would Reiser think of the BeOS BFS?
by
goingware
·
· Score: 5
Hans Reiser specifically discusses how his aim is a journaling filesystem with keyword searching integrated into the fileystem. He gives address books as an example.
This is done in the BFS filesystem which is part of the BeOS, which you can download here. The "People" address book database in the BeOS is entirely implemented in the filesystem.
I use the BFS in my applications I write for the BeOS - not just to store files, but I specifically use its indexed attributes for fast keyword searching in Word Services for the BeOS and I think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
While Be's implementation of the BFS is proprietary, there is a GPL'ed read-only Linux implementation of it available here
I don't think the attributes are available from Linux in the Linux version of the BFS, but they could be and to do so I think would be a significant addition to the OS.
I find it interesting that Hans talks about non-US programmers taking their piece of the pie. In my last job, the company I was working for decided to outsource most of the programming work in my department to Romania. The literacy rate in Romania is amazingly high and many people there can't work the jobs they're educated for. So we got a damn good batch of programmers making several times the national average salary for Romania getting to work in what have to be dream jobs for them.
And of course after you factor in benefits etc, we could hire half a dozen or more of them for the cost of one programmer in the USA.
Most of our communication was through E-Mail with weekly teleconferences and the occasional trip over there. The first time I went over, I met a guy from another big company while getting breakfast at the Hotel at 6am (Jetlag.) There was at least one other one in the area and we were starting to see a talent crunch.
Bad news for American programmers, I suppose, but perhaps this sort of thing will balance out the world economy in the long run. Hopefully so the standard of living is good for everyone, not so that it sucks for everyone.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
All I have to say is this.
by
Signal+1|
·
· Score: 3
BeOS really has no chance in today's highly competitive competition for corporate conglomerate (c)desktop users. You know Linux does, because of its great user interface, uncomplicated it's spiffy non-complicatedness with all the power of Unix and its great Java. Also, it has by far the best internet Explorer, called Netscape. Netscape, the best of the internet Explorers, really lets one Explore the internet better than with other internet Explorers. I have been a web broswer for a long time and let me tell you linux is the best for web browsers like me. I am really glad that soon with this new file system linux users will be able to save file and their kernels to their hard disk drive. i do love linux but having to install it every time i boot the personal computer that it was getting sickening and too installing all of the various peripherals and various things such as the software, etc. Also, Linux has a great shot at being today's number one software because it has a fun game built right into the monitor that is called degauss. it makes the monitor do funny stuff.
According to Alan Cox on the resier mailing list today, there's no way in hell the FS is going into 2.4. I like Hans, but he's fulla hooey on that particular count.
Not suprising, though, as he's said 'we're in' for pretty much the entire 2.3 lifespan - with or without Linus' support.
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 13:55:56 +0100 (BST) From: Alan Cox To: Sasi Peter Cc: Richard Torkar , Lars Marowsky-Bree , Rik van Riel , linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu, "reiserfs@devlinux.com" Subject: (reiserfs) Re: New Linux 2.5 - 2.6 TODO (Alan Cox suggests
> a good job; why would not you finally adopt their FS into the kernel???
Because we are in a code freeze. The same reasoning with NWFS, JFFS, XFS, EXT3
And as far as -ac patches go I've send them same to all parties - No. For a change that big so close to a final 2.4.0 release its for Linus to break the stated rules if anyone does.
-- blue
-- i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Slashdot Mirror
Subject: What would Hans Reiser think about cheese?
(Long advocacy comment about cheese here.)
I think the filesystem got off to a bad start with some political / personal issues, and there was apparently alittle snafu on the main kernel list, but I'm glad to see it is all working out - the "beta" reiserfs was more than stable enough for the worst I could deal up with it - I stuck qmail on it and pumped in about 500,000 e-mails over the course of an hour... they all came back out, minus three which blackholed and one which was a dup. Not bad, considering it did all that /very/ quickly.. and the system was even kinda-sorta responsive while I was doing that. :)
It's also being funded by mp3.com so I rather expect it to reach industrial strength reliability.. but I took the plunge and didn't regret it. Then again, I don't do massive data warehousing.. so YMMV.
As far as I can tell:
* xfs is very nice all around and thoroughly
tested on SGIs, but since it's a port that
isn't very integrated into the kernel, the
patch is *ugly* and scary. I haven't used
it on linux yet.
* reiserfs is fast and sweet, but I lost some
data (recoverable, but still annoying) to
a couple of development versions in reiserfs
3.6.* and linux 2.3.99pre*.
* ext3 does journalling of everything right now,
not just metadata, so it's slow.
There's also IBM's JFS, about which I know nothing.
ReiserFS is by far the most mature of the three (well, four if you count JFS, which you missed). XFS probably won't see the light of day (or the light of night when dealing with kernel hackers, I suppose) until 2.5; someone might kinda sorta get ready to start considering how to start thinking about looking at ext3 by 2.7 or so; and I haven't a clue how JFS is doing.
So that leaves ReiserFS. It's not extraordinarily stable yet (and from what I hear, it's not even ordinarily stable, relatively speaking), but it does the job for a lot of people. Somewhere along 2.4, it'll get stable enough that it becomes the Cool Thing To Do (kind of like Linux itself), and everyone and their dog will be running ReiserFS.
Since ReiserFS offers no glaring technical deficiencies when compared to the other three, it will probably be the most popular until the end of time (or at least until something new comes along). Not to say that ext3, JFS and XFS won't be popular, but I would guess that they'll never be as popular as ReiserFS with Linux users.
This is done in the BFS filesystem which is part of the BeOS, which you can download here. The "People" address book database in the BeOS is entirely implemented in the filesystem.
The structure and implementation of the filesystem are described in detail by Dominic Giampolo in Practical File System Design with the Be File System, ISBN 1558604979.
I use the BFS in my applications I write for the BeOS - not just to store files, but I specifically use its indexed attributes for fast keyword searching in Word Services for the BeOS and I think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
While Be's implementation of the BFS is proprietary, there is a GPL'ed read-only Linux implementation of it available here
Daniel Berlin, a BeOS developer who also programs on Linux, has provided an update that works with the 2.4 kernel
I don't think the attributes are available from Linux in the Linux version of the BFS, but they could be and to do so I think would be a significant addition to the OS.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
And of course after you factor in benefits etc, we could hire half a dozen or more of them for the cost of one programmer in the USA.
Most of our communication was through E-Mail with weekly teleconferences and the occasional trip over there. The first time I went over, I met a guy from another big company while getting breakfast at the Hotel at 6am (Jetlag.) There was at least one other one in the area and we were starting to see a talent crunch.
Bad news for American programmers, I suppose, but perhaps this sort of thing will balance out the world economy in the long run. Hopefully so the standard of living is good for everyone, not so that it sucks for everyone.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
BeOS really has no chance in today's highly competitive competition for corporate conglomerate (c)desktop users. You know Linux does, because of its great user interface, uncomplicated it's spiffy non-complicatedness with all the power of Unix and its great Java. Also, it has by far the best internet Explorer, called Netscape. Netscape, the best of the internet Explorers, really lets one Explore the internet better than with other internet Explorers. I have been a web broswer for a long time and let me tell you linux is the best for web browsers like me. I am really glad that soon with this new file system linux users will be able to save file and their kernels to their hard disk drive. i do love linux but having to install it every time i boot the personal computer that it was getting sickening and too installing all of the various peripherals and various things such as the software, etc. Also, Linux has a great shot at being today's number one software because it has a fun game built right into the monitor that is called degauss. it makes the monitor do funny stuff.
According to Alan Cox on the resier mailing list today, there's no way in hell the FS is going into 2.4. I like Hans, but he's fulla hooey on that particular count.
Not suprising, though, as he's said 'we're in' for pretty much the entire 2.3 lifespan - with or without Linus' support.
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 13:55:56 +0100 (BST)
From: Alan Cox
To: Sasi Peter
Cc: Richard Torkar , Lars Marowsky-Bree ,
Rik van Riel , linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu,
"reiserfs@devlinux.com"
Subject: (reiserfs) Re: New Linux 2.5 - 2.6 TODO (Alan Cox suggests
> a good job; why would not you finally adopt their FS into the kernel???
Because we are in a code freeze. The same reasoning with NWFS, JFFS, XFS, EXT3
And as far as -ac patches go I've send them same to all parties - No. For
a change that big so close to a final 2.4.0 release its for Linus to break
the stated rules if anyone does.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.