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Mac OS X to Get Journaling FS
overunderunderdone writes "According to eWeek, Apple Computer is planning to introduce a new journaling file system code-named 'Elvis' with the 10.2.2 release. Supposedly it will run on top of HFS+ and will be turned off by default. Though it will cost you 10% to 15% performance penalty the article says it is more extensive than NTFS and is on par with BeOS's 64-bit journaling file system. Not surprising since it is being developed by the same person - Dominic Giampaolo." I've been super impressed by OS X having used it as my primary laptop for the last couple weeks. It really is a great unix box- and this is one of the important missing puzzle pieces.
Is this an entirely new journaling system or one based on an existing (BeOS) journaling system? Won't there be performance and stability impacts from basing it on HFS+ instead of a more modern framework? Is is possible to compile one of the existing *BSD journaling systems on OSX/Darwin (I haven't heard of anyone with success in this matter)?
what other important features has OSX that Linux has not. I am thinking about getting a Laptop with OSX so I was wondering how OXS compares to Linux.
Ok, so being I'm not the highest on there terminology totem pole, can somebody expain to me why journaling matters to me, and why its worth 10-15% of my system resources?
Mod point free since 2001
...to Switch! This was about the last major gripe I had with Mac OS X. We already have an encrypted file system. However, no matter how I have abused my Macs in the past, I have never had filesystem corruption with HFS+. I constantly forget to unmount my iPod and yank it off the firewire cable. Mac OS X grips about the possibility of filesystem corruption but so far, so good. Others mileage may vary and I wouldn't do it during a write.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I wonder if that stated 10-15% performance hit
is with or without journal on a separate disk.
I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
One of the main reasons I haven't switched from the despotic Linux family with it's Nazi-esque SysV init scripts is the presence of awesome journaling capability, knowing that I can pull out the power cords on my SCSI disks and reconstruct data on the fly gives me a lot of peace of mind.
But, having cut my eye teeth on SunOS 4.1.3, I still have a hankering for the old rc files, and the general Berkeleyness of the BSDs. Will Apple be good enough to help roll a decent journaling file system back into the BDSs, so I can return to my blissfil Berkely rc days, and not worry about the cleaning lady pulling out my RAID power outlet to use the vacuum cleaner?
I'd rather have a plain old UFS filesystem that IS case sensitive than HFS+journaling+whatever.
Actually, I'd like to see XFS on mac. I guess it's one thing to take ideas from *BSD, but completely different from taking ideas from IRIX.
I use FAT32.
The diskspace used by the journal file in NTFS and this new filesystem can be put to much better use.
Ya, like all of the fucking backups you need to keep your data safe. On that 80Gig disk, no less.
Fuck
All
There
is what we used to call the FAT filesystem, and for good reason. No security, no recovery. You work for Peter Norton, any chance?
Get a clue, bud - journaling file systems were integrated with _all_ modern OSes for a reason. Namely, big gain, near zero cost.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Rob, what kind of laptop is it?
And will you be writing a review of OSX and Apple laptops in the near future?
If it takes a 10-15% performace hit that is significant on older hardware. 10.2 is faster than 10.1 but on a G3 333 it's still dog slow. It works out my G4 733 too.
That being said I'll try it but hopefully there will be a way to disable it as well.
James,
Actually, I wrote that "rumor and speculation" was a silly yardstick for Apple to apply to press access, since all the mainstream press sources that cover Apple (present company included) happily employ both:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,338330,00.a sp
I also said that Apple has a right (and a need) to establish a method for differentiating between the press and enthusiasts when it comes to allocating press badges. However, applying this particular measure to the small fry and not the big fish smacks of intimidation.
Press access is a privilege that Apple can extend or withhold, but if they're not going to apply it fairly or consistently, I reserve the right to call them on it.
Matthew Rothenberg
Online editor
Ziff Davis Media
A huge fraction of technical (and high-spending) PC users who might switch know exactly what Slashdot is.
It would be awesome: "... I'm Rob Malda, and I run Slashdot.org"
So, where do I download source for Aqua?
Ups, and Darwin isn't supporting my hardware, damn. But then again Darwin itself is just as usable as DOS prompt from desktop view.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
On servers, despite its popularity, journaling makes much less sense: there are better ways to recover from failures, and the performance hit really does matter.
That could actually be an interesting marketing move on Apple's part - one of the guys that runs a (dare I say THE MOST) highly visible geek web site, switching?
:)
Not only that, but it'd be a few more bucks in Taco's pocket for being in the ad
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
I assume that this rumor means that the new FS will be "more extensive" in its journaling capabilities, not features.
NTFS supports DACLs (Discretionary Access Control Lists. Grant rights specifically on files, folders, or both for any specific combination of rights. Yes, even includes things like execute, though most users don't get THAT granular.) It also supports Auditing via an ACL-like mechanism. Wanna see if user sally01 read file X? Add her with READ to the audit list. Who is renaming files in c:\docs? add Everyone with rename/modify to the Audit list.
NTFS does quotas, junction points (links), and reparse points. Reparse points allow things like EFS to work without the app being aware of it. If I wanted to replace the word "microsoft" with BORK BORK BORK on the disk, I could write a parsing driver and install it. Then, any file with my driver's signature in its reparse point list would be handed off to my driver for processing before being saved to disk or read from disk to an application.
There are plenty of other features as well, but the point is that to be a better filesystem than NTFS would take a huge amount of work on the filesystem itself, plus getting the OS to support it. However it is relatively easy to attack a specific point of NTFS (its journaling) and make your filesystem do that specific thing better.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
>Check back with me in a month, gsfprez, and we can talk about whether or not this story has legs. :-)
/. report that "Apple: MacOS X to Get Journaling FS" is not an accurate way to announce this news.
l )
t ml)
/. and Nick dePlume. My apologies for not being more clear.
while it may have legs or not - that doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, rumor - and not solid facts coming from the 1 Infinite Loop Compound.
Therefore, it doesn't change the fact that the
"Apple: Mac OS X rumored to get a JFS in 10.2.2" - which is what your report is - would be far more acurate, and acceptable of a title.
It also doesn't help to involve yourself with someone who is only slightly more accurate than Ryan Meader. While nothing is as bad as MacOS Rumors - which is only slightly less accurate than CrazyAppleRumors, you might do well to re-examine the useless Ryan Meader-esque drivvel Think Secret has given us in the past...
- the amazing iPad - which was such an amazingly horrid case of egg-face that they've deleted every possible history of it on their site
- G5s since may of 1999(http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0599.htm
- Mac OS Lite on a Palm-like device since june of 1999
(http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0699.h
I could go on... but i think that my basic point is that if you're going to lecture people on sexual harassment, you don't have Bill Clinton co-write the material with you - it diminishes your credibility, regardless.
i do give marks to eWeek for their news on the Mac - its fairly unbiased compared to other tech news outlets like c|net - and i do note that the actual article at your website does clarify clearly that this is, indeed, rumor, and not Apple Computer making an announcement.
so - while it seemed like a slam on you and eWeek, it was more of a slam on
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Unless of course you someday decide that you don't want to use the Mac anymore, in which case you'll find you're just as badly locked in to it as 95% of the world is with Windows. I know you might think it crazy that you would ever wish to stop using the Mac, but Apple is a company, and we all know that they are hardly the most consistant things when it comes to doing what you want. What would happen if you wanted to switch to something else?
Well, you'd find that none of your apps would work on the platform of your choice, because the Mac APIs are proprietary, and there is only one implementation of them - the Apple implementation. Notice how easy it is to make open sourced Linux stuff work on the Mac? Yet that it's impossible to do the reverse? What about the Mac file formats? Even the iPod, a frickin MP3 player had to have some format reverse engineered (the index? don't remember). It's not like Apple deliberately throw up these roadblocks (though they have a history of abusing the legal system), it's just a natural consequence of lockin, which is what characterizes these kind of platforms.
[sigh]. I'm tired. Don't get me wrong, this isn't me criticizing OS X or even Apple specifically, not this time. I think it's great you're getting a journaled FS, more power to Apple and as a consequence you
But comments like the above just show that you haven't really experienced the pain of vendor lockin yet. Right now things are peachy. But in the future? What if the upgrade to 10.3 also costs $120? What will you do? Pay up I guess. Well, it's your choice, but at least understand that there are plenty of roadblocks in Mac land, it's just that they're one way only.
Are there any *reliable* kernel modules for Linux 2.2 that will let you use bfs as your filesystem? I heard of a development/test module, but I also heard that it was more in the toy stage then alpha/beta quality.
I really miss the fast, usable bfs from my old BeOS 4.5 box. I never really like 5.0, but 4.5 was awesome. It's unfortunate that they discontinued it, as with some support, it could easily have been wide spread desktop (probably around the popularity that the various BSD flavors are today).
gsfprez,
It might be worth your time to give a closer look to some of Think Secret's exclusive Mac insider news from this past year. As you indicated, circa 2000 we did indeed transition from an opinion/speculation site to a publication resembling what we are today. Not only have we broken some of the biggest Apple stories out there, but I'm proud of our accuracy.
I think our record for the past two years speaks for itself, and I invite others to examine our archives to reach their own conclusion.
If you truly believe that every news article drawing on facts not officially released from Apple is "rumor," then I suppose we have a fundamental difference of opinion.
Thanks for reading,
Nick dePlume
Publisher and Editor in Chief, Think Secret
http://www.thinksecret.com
Oh yeah. And BeOS still rocks, even though it is LONG DEAD! LONG LIVE THE DEAD!
Mac OS 9 does it's startup check if there is an inviable file on the HD, it delets the iniviable file upon a proper shutdown. classic otoh, doesn't always delete that file (i don't think it has the permisions!) so, OS 9 thinks that it wasn't shut down properly. just do an rm -f /Shutdown\ Check before rebooting into 9 (alternitivly, you can disable the startup check in the General Controls)
and yes, OS X does fsck upon a power failer, pull the plug and watch how much longer it takes to boot (or boot in verbose)
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.