Some of us are far more popular and have to deal with 3 or 4 emails per day. Bayesian based automatic tagging, filtering etc.
You get 3-4 emails per day and feel you absolutely must have "Bayesian based automatic tagging" and "filtering" to handle that veritable avalanche correspondence? No offense, but I think your problems lie elsewhere...
Putting/home on another spindle is a whole other matter. In that case, yes, there are substantial advantages, and the issue I brought up (running out of space on one of the partitions) is minimized (since you've clearly chosen to dedicate separate disks to / and/home). But on a single disk, I really don't think it makes any sense for the *default* configuration to split out/home.
I'm just unsure why trying (and failing, for the most part) to be a half-assed Windows clone is such a great thing for Linux to do.
And I'm not sure why trying to emulate FreeBSD is "such a great thing for Linux to do". I like apt and it's killer dependency handling and associated, vast software repository. I like kernel modules and the fact that I don't have to build custom kernels anymore (I've done that, I've moved on). And PulseAudio. And faster boot times.
In short: I like the fact that Linux is growing past it's Unix roots and embracing good ideas from *everywhere*, as I realize that an operating system frozen in the 1980's isn't necessarily a good thing.
Linux was originally a UNIX clone, before Mark Shuttleworth got hold of it.
Holy shit, I can't even describe how much bullshit that is. Package managers? Kernel modules? Sound daemons? What, you think Shuttleworth invented those ideas? Good god, have you paid *any* attention to the last 15 years of development in the Linux world?
Ubuntu is the natural consequence of years of development as Linux has matured into an OS that consumers can actually use. If you don't like that, please, just go away and enjoy FreeBSD. It exists to do what you want. Leave Ubuntu, and Linux, the hell alone.
Canonical have had to do some fairly unnatural things to force Linux to resemble Windows to the degree that they have.
Total, utter bullshit. Canonical has done *nothing* that hadn't been pioneered by others. They just did a better job of refining it than anyone else.
What I want to know is why you're even participating in a discussion about Ubuntu, or Linux in general. Clearly you're a BSD fanboi... or perhaps I just fell for a troll?
Conversely, if the tool you choose doesn't have wide use in the community (like, say, a niche filesystem) you're far more likely to encounter bugs.
, and if you change your tools whenever you bounce on the first bug, you are a leecher who doesn't give anything back to the community.
Bullshit. I've been in the Linux community for over a decade. I've written OSS, I've contributed to projects, and I've filed my fair share of bugs. But when I have a project that needs finishing, I'm not going to waste my time testing other people's code while living with a flaky system. I'm going to switch to software that *works* so that I can move on with my life.
Or we will end up with a very solid general purpose filesystem and no specialized one.
So what? XFS and JFS are *meant* to be solid, general purpose filesystems. They're just not, due to lack of acceptance.
Frankly, I disagree with your premise. I don't believe there *is* a need for special-purpose filesystems, unless the underlying devices require it (for example, log-based filesystems are useful for solid-state storage).
It's like when you completely flawed the schema design underlying your application, and try to fix things in the business logic. Again, your choice.
When the alternative is kernel panics triggered by the "right tool" (as you put it), what other choice is there? You could, like a sucker, live with the instability. But I use Linux because it works. If I wanted an unstable operating system, I'd use Windows. So instead, I switch to the actual "right tool"... that being, the one that works without my system crashing every frickin' night.
Now, maybe you have a bunch of free time on your hands and like the idea of debugging other people's broken code. And if you do, hey, more power to ya. But some of us have better things to do with our time.
The only good reason for a separate/home is to partition your data from everything else.
Right. And the only advantage that provides is if you decide to upgrade and reuse the same/home. I've already pointed out how that's a bad idea, in general. And that use case requires more advanced knowledge of Ubuntu, Unix, and partitioning than your average user possesses. So it's only really useful for advanced users, who are already capable of splitting out home into a separate partition.
Its not something you'd do very often, but when you do come to do it you realise why you did it.
No, you might. I haven't. I've upgraded from 7.04 -> 7.10 -> 8.04 -> 8.10 -> 9.04, and soon 9.10, and never once have I regretted not splitting out/home. In fact, given the incompatibilities I've experienced due to config file changes and so forth, I've been extremely *glad* I chose to create a whole new/home, followed by copying over the things I want, as that ensures I start with a clean slate as far as the desktop environment goes.
I think it'd work well for the common user too, the days of one big "C:" partition should be over.
Again, you say 'should', as if it's just a foregone conclusion that your way is better and that everyone else is too dumb to realize it. But that's not at all true. A split partition scheme brings certain advantages. A unified scheme brings others. Hell, this whole discussion is about that very topic. To pretend that your approach is the end-all and the be-all is absurd.
Ubuntu still needs to change a lot (scrap Upstart/clone FreeBSD init, get rid of DKMS, ideally get rid of crapt-get and clone ports, revert to OSS for sound, get rid of the insane scenario where GNOME is irremovably fused with virtually the entire rest of the system)
Or you could just run FreeBSD, rather than trying to turn Ubuntu into it...
Umm, you are aware that the version number, 9.10, indicates the year and month the release will come out in, aren't you? Hence why 9.04 came out in April 2009, and 9.10 came out in October, 2009?
Furthermore, every Ubuntu release comes out on an April or October: 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, and the forthcoming LTS, 10.04...
That means absolutely nothing. Panics dont depend on which filesystem you intend to use, and the perfect filesystem doesn't exists and never will. You probably misconfigured grub or forgot to remake initrd or such.
No, I hit a bug in the filesystem. It *does* happen from time to time, believe it or not.
ROFL, "panics don't depend on which filesystem you intend to use"... your 6-digit UID would suggest you're not a newb, and yet that comment is so silly it seems to suggest otherwise. The contradiction is puzzling yet fascinating.
The suggestion to use JFS for mythtv storage is because it has constant time on file deletion over file size, and your myth storage dir will be packed up with lots of very big files.
I'm aware of that. I don't care. Slow delete in Myth 0.21 works around the issue for ext3 and works perfectly fine. This is on a system with 2 tuners, a TB of storage, and around a dozen recordings per day, many simultaneous, with regular auto-expirations occuring (ie, the filesystem is being regularly hammered, both in terms of writes and deletes).
As for resize, I don't resize. When my RAID fails, I buy a new set of drives, copy over the data, and move on. And if I did feel the need to tack on storage, I'd use storage groups, not LVM (which, having used it in the past, simply isn't worth the additional hassle, not to mention cognitive load).
Funny, because I thought the premise was bottom-of-the-barrel computer users. Those don't have backups. Just saying...
And they also don't understand how to re-install Ubuntu and have it use their old/home partition (to do that, you have to use the advanced partitioning mode). Average users will just upgrade. And if they do that, then having/home on a separate partition presents absolutely zero advantages, while creating the pain of a more inflexible storage arrangement.
Going from experience, many of those who care only realize they care when it's too late. i.e. after they've installed Linux, decided they like it, and hit their first upgrade point, whereupon someone says 'of course, if you have a separate/home, you can just...
Can just... backup. Then either re-install and copy everything over, or do an 'apt-get dist-upgrade'.
I mean, you don't really trust a new OS with your old data without backing it up first, do you?
BTW, I've been running Linux for 15 years now. I have yet to see a pressing need for a separate/home partition, and I've learned the hard way what a pain in the ass it is to run out of space, particularly if/home happens to be butted up against the end of the disk.
Sharing the same home over different distros? Look, you don't need it, it's clear
But most people don't, that's my entire damn point. Ubuntu's default configuration should be reasonable for normal users, not 30-year Unix dinosaurs.;)
And sharing a/home over distros seems like a deeply bad idea... incompatible versions of software packages would wreak havoc on your config files.
Just don't come whining at me when you actually do format your / accidentally.
Ah, I see you've never heard of backups. Weird, given your proclivity for clinging to age-old Unix traditions.;)
Simple: less risk that you forget to uncheck the "format" checkbox when installing the OS. If it is on a separate partition, your data is safe. (Well as safe as the disk hardware).
Default Ubuntu install is "format" the / disk. If this includes your/home, you're fucked. At least the average user is.
Most Ubuntu users upgrade, not re-install.
For those that do re-install, it's a *really* bad idea to use your old/home straight away, anyway, as you'll inevitably run into configuration files that no longer work. Plus the cruft builds up.
No, if you do a full re-install, you're much better off backing up your home directory, then doing a full re-install and copying the files over that you want. Or, as I do, you just keep two partitions around, one with the old OS+home, and one with the new OS+home (after all, as you say, disks are huge these days), and just copy from one to the other on a major OS upgrade.
Good Christ, *why*? Yeah, 20 years ago that might have been a good idea, but I really don't get the need these days, given the size of disks and the popularization of journaling filesystems (which minimize fsck delays).
Why a separate/home? So that you can easily do a clean install of the next version from CD without blowing away all your data.
Except that your average Ubuntu user does an upgrade, not a re-install.
And if you're paranoid (like, apparently, you and I) and re-install rather than upgrade, you never want to install a new OS and then trust it with your old/home in the first place. It's much safer to create an entirely new installation, then copy things over as you need them. Otherwise, you may fall victim to old config files that no longer work with the new applications, etc (I've had that happen with Gnome on more than one occasion).
Why? With disks sufficiently large these day, just allocate 10GB for Ubuntu and take the rest for/home.
And then you run out of that 10GB because you're working with large video files, or decide to rip your audio collection to disk. Hell, my/home was over 20GB before I cleared out some old cruft I no longer needed (just one directory, the result of a large.torrent, was over 5GB).
Meanwhile, you still haven't explained the advantages of putting/home on a separate partition.
If you don't trust that, simply use LVM. Really, this is childsplay.
What part of "average user" don't you understand? If you understand enough to use LVM, you understand enough to set up the partition table the way you see fit. Again, we're talking about Ubuntu's *default* configuration. And I've yet to see an argument for why the default installation should have/home on a separate partition.
The problem with flash content (for me at any rate) has been stability. On 64bit I've tried Adobe's preliminary native 64bit player, and it didn't work.
I think you're in the minority, here. I've been running the native 64-bit flash plugin since Ubuntu 8.10 without any problems. Have you tried reporting the issues you're having?
On a side note. It would be nice if the Ubuntu installer by default created a seperate/home partition. (or maybe they have in the last version or so, I haven't installed from scratch).
Uh, why? For most people, that's just a pain in the ass... suddenly you have to guess how much space you'll want in / and/home, and if you underestimate, you find yourself having to resize filesystems. And for those who care (such as yourself), you can easily set things up that way during the initial install.
And I can tell you that, in my experience on my MythTV backend, Ubuntu 9.04 plus ext4 resulted in kernel panics. Switching back to ext3 resolved the problem.
That said, my laptop has been running a 64-bit 9.04 on ext4 for months now with a hitch... OTOH, I don't tend to beat the hell out of my disk the way my Myth box does.
Given it's a moderated group, you could easily create a web of trust between moderators, and then have the moderators add the keys of valid participants to their chain. From then on, anyone 'pre-moderated' (whatever that means) would only be able to send an email to the list if the mail was signed with a key a moderator had already accepted.
But, of course, you'd need people to actually use PGP/GPG, which seems like an uphill battle...
Did you actually read his post? Regardless of what the drive does underneath the covers, from the OS and disk controller standpoint, the disk is organized into contiguous blocks. If a file is fragmented at a logical level, multiple read/write commands need to be issued to controller in order to manipulate the data on the disk, whereas if the blocks are laid out linearly (again, from the disk controller's perspective), those operations can be done as single commands.
Really, what you want is an ATA command to say "take these two blocks and swap them" (or some sort of equivalent mechanism). On an SSD, this operation would only affect the logical representation, while on a real disk it would actually change the physical representation. You could then use those operations to "defrag" the disk, but in the case of an SSD, all you'd really do is end up reorganizing the logical layout... the physical blocks would never get touched.
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I get really annoyed by people getting this the wrong way around.
And I get really annoyed by people who think language should work the precise way they feel it should work and no other.
A "learning curve" is conceptualized, not as a graph of knowledge versus time, but as a graph of knowledge versus *effort*.
So if something is difficult, to learn a little you have to put in a lot of effort. Result? Steep learning curve.
Some of us are far more popular and have to deal with 3 or 4 emails per day. Bayesian based automatic tagging, filtering etc.
You get 3-4 emails per day and feel you absolutely must have "Bayesian based automatic tagging" and "filtering" to handle that veritable avalanche correspondence? No offense, but I think your problems lie elsewhere...
I use lpr for printing, not cups
Well, I can see another way of solving your problem...
Putting /home on another spindle is a whole other matter. In that case, yes, there are substantial advantages, and the issue I brought up (running out of space on one of the partitions) is minimized (since you've clearly chosen to dedicate separate disks to / and /home). But on a single disk, I really don't think it makes any sense for the *default* configuration to split out /home.
I'm just unsure why trying (and failing, for the most part) to be a half-assed Windows clone is such a great thing for Linux to do.
And I'm not sure why trying to emulate FreeBSD is "such a great thing for Linux to do". I like apt and it's killer dependency handling and associated, vast software repository. I like kernel modules and the fact that I don't have to build custom kernels anymore (I've done that, I've moved on). And PulseAudio. And faster boot times.
In short: I like the fact that Linux is growing past it's Unix roots and embracing good ideas from *everywhere*, as I realize that an operating system frozen in the 1980's isn't necessarily a good thing.
Linux was originally a UNIX clone, before Mark Shuttleworth got hold of it.
Holy shit, I can't even describe how much bullshit that is. Package managers? Kernel modules? Sound daemons? What, you think Shuttleworth invented those ideas? Good god, have you paid *any* attention to the last 15 years of development in the Linux world?
Ubuntu is the natural consequence of years of development as Linux has matured into an OS that consumers can actually use. If you don't like that, please, just go away and enjoy FreeBSD. It exists to do what you want. Leave Ubuntu, and Linux, the hell alone.
Canonical have had to do some fairly unnatural things to force Linux to resemble Windows to the degree that they have.
Total, utter bullshit. Canonical has done *nothing* that hadn't been pioneered by others. They just did a better job of refining it than anyone else.
What I want to know is why you're even participating in a discussion about Ubuntu, or Linux in general. Clearly you're a BSD fanboi... or perhaps I just fell for a troll?
I meant that bugs are everywhere in software
Conversely, if the tool you choose doesn't have wide use in the community (like, say, a niche filesystem) you're far more likely to encounter bugs.
, and if you change your tools whenever you bounce on the first bug, you are a leecher who doesn't give anything back to the community.
Bullshit. I've been in the Linux community for over a decade. I've written OSS, I've contributed to projects, and I've filed my fair share of bugs. But when I have a project that needs finishing, I'm not going to waste my time testing other people's code while living with a flaky system. I'm going to switch to software that *works* so that I can move on with my life.
Or we will end up with a very solid general purpose filesystem and no specialized one.
So what? XFS and JFS are *meant* to be solid, general purpose filesystems. They're just not, due to lack of acceptance.
Frankly, I disagree with your premise. I don't believe there *is* a need for special-purpose filesystems, unless the underlying devices require it (for example, log-based filesystems are useful for solid-state storage).
It's like when you completely flawed the schema design underlying your application, and try to fix things in the business logic. Again, your choice.
When the alternative is kernel panics triggered by the "right tool" (as you put it), what other choice is there? You could, like a sucker, live with the instability. But I use Linux because it works. If I wanted an unstable operating system, I'd use Windows. So instead, I switch to the actual "right tool"... that being, the one that works without my system crashing every frickin' night.
Now, maybe you have a bunch of free time on your hands and like the idea of debugging other people's broken code. And if you do, hey, more power to ya. But some of us have better things to do with our time.
The only good reason for a separate /home is to partition your data from everything else.
Right. And the only advantage that provides is if you decide to upgrade and reuse the same /home. I've already pointed out how that's a bad idea, in general. And that use case requires more advanced knowledge of Ubuntu, Unix, and partitioning than your average user possesses. So it's only really useful for advanced users, who are already capable of splitting out home into a separate partition.
Its not something you'd do very often, but when you do come to do it you realise why you did it.
No, you might. I haven't. I've upgraded from 7.04 -> 7.10 -> 8.04 -> 8.10 -> 9.04, and soon 9.10, and never once have I regretted not splitting out /home. In fact, given the incompatibilities I've experienced due to config file changes and so forth, I've been extremely *glad* I chose to create a whole new /home, followed by copying over the things I want, as that ensures I start with a clean slate as far as the desktop environment goes.
I think it'd work well for the common user too, the days of one big "C:" partition should be over.
Again, you say 'should', as if it's just a foregone conclusion that your way is better and that everyone else is too dumb to realize it. But that's not at all true. A split partition scheme brings certain advantages. A unified scheme brings others. Hell, this whole discussion is about that very topic. To pretend that your approach is the end-all and the be-all is absurd.
Ubuntu still needs to change a lot (scrap Upstart/clone FreeBSD init, get rid of DKMS, ideally get rid of crapt-get and clone ports, revert to OSS for sound, get rid of the insane scenario where GNOME is irremovably fused with virtually the entire rest of the system)
Or you could just run FreeBSD, rather than trying to turn Ubuntu into it...
Umm, you are aware that the version number, 9.10, indicates the year and month the release will come out in, aren't you? Hence why 9.04 came out in April 2009, and 9.10 came out in October, 2009?
Furthermore, every Ubuntu release comes out on an April or October: 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, and the forthcoming LTS, 10.04...
Silly newbs. ;)
How does one even "connect" to applications in a "cloud"?
Let me introduce you to a fascinating new piece of technology! It's called a web browser...
That means absolutely nothing. Panics dont depend on which filesystem you intend to use, and the perfect filesystem doesn't exists and never will. You probably misconfigured grub or forgot to remake initrd or such.
No, I hit a bug in the filesystem. It *does* happen from time to time, believe it or not.
ROFL, "panics don't depend on which filesystem you intend to use"... your 6-digit UID would suggest you're not a newb, and yet that comment is so silly it seems to suggest otherwise. The contradiction is puzzling yet fascinating.
The suggestion to use JFS for mythtv storage is because it has constant time on file deletion over file size, and your myth storage dir will be packed up with lots of very big files.
I'm aware of that. I don't care. Slow delete in Myth 0.21 works around the issue for ext3 and works perfectly fine. This is on a system with 2 tuners, a TB of storage, and around a dozen recordings per day, many simultaneous, with regular auto-expirations occuring (ie, the filesystem is being regularly hammered, both in terms of writes and deletes).
As for resize, I don't resize. When my RAID fails, I buy a new set of drives, copy over the data, and move on. And if I did feel the need to tack on storage, I'd use storage groups, not LVM (which, having used it in the past, simply isn't worth the additional hassle, not to mention cognitive load).
Funny, because I thought the premise was bottom-of-the-barrel computer users. Those don't have backups. Just saying...
And they also don't understand how to re-install Ubuntu and have it use their old /home partition (to do that, you have to use the advanced partitioning mode). Average users will just upgrade. And if they do that, then having /home on a separate partition presents absolutely zero advantages, while creating the pain of a more inflexible storage arrangement.
Been there, kernel panicked. Thanks, but no thanks. Meanwhile, ext3 has been rock solid stable, across multiple distros, with years of service.
Going from experience, many of those who care only realize they care when it's too late. i.e. after they've installed Linux, decided they like it, and hit their first upgrade point, whereupon someone says 'of course, if you have a separate /home, you can just...
Can just... backup. Then either re-install and copy everything over, or do an 'apt-get dist-upgrade'.
I mean, you don't really trust a new OS with your old data without backing it up first, do you?
BTW, I've been running Linux for 15 years now. I have yet to see a pressing need for a separate /home partition, and I've learned the hard way what a pain in the ass it is to run out of space, particularly if /home happens to be butted up against the end of the disk.
Sharing the same home over different distros? Look, you don't need it, it's clear
But most people don't, that's my entire damn point. Ubuntu's default configuration should be reasonable for normal users, not 30-year Unix dinosaurs. ;)
And sharing a /home over distros seems like a deeply bad idea... incompatible versions of software packages would wreak havoc on your config files.
Just don't come whining at me when you actually do format your / accidentally.
Ah, I see you've never heard of backups. Weird, given your proclivity for clinging to age-old Unix traditions. ;)
Most Ubuntu users upgrade, not re-install.
For those that do re-install, it's a *really* bad idea to use your old /home straight away, anyway, as you'll inevitably run into configuration files that no longer work. Plus the cruft builds up.
No, if you do a full re-install, you're much better off backing up your home directory, then doing a full re-install and copying the files over that you want. Or, as I do, you just keep two partitions around, one with the old OS+home, and one with the new OS+home (after all, as you say, disks are huge these days), and just copy from one to the other on a major OS upgrade.
Good Christ, *why*? Yeah, 20 years ago that might have been a good idea, but I really don't get the need these days, given the size of disks and the popularization of journaling filesystems (which minimize fsck delays).
Why a separate /home? So that you can easily do a clean install of the next version from CD without blowing away all your data.
Except that your average Ubuntu user does an upgrade, not a re-install.
And if you're paranoid (like, apparently, you and I) and re-install rather than upgrade, you never want to install a new OS and then trust it with your old /home in the first place. It's much safer to create an entirely new installation, then copy things over as you need them. Otherwise, you may fall victim to old config files that no longer work with the new applications, etc (I've had that happen with Gnome on more than one occasion).
ROFL, weak... you said allocate 10GB to /, and the rest to /home, not the other way 'round. *sigh* :)
But in that case, you run the risk of running out of space in / (if you throw things in /opt or /local, it could happen pretty easily).
But, granted, this would work better... though I still don't see the advantage.
Why? With disks sufficiently large these day, just allocate 10GB for Ubuntu and take the rest for /home.
And then you run out of that 10GB because you're working with large video files, or decide to rip your audio collection to disk. Hell, my /home was over 20GB before I cleared out some old cruft I no longer needed (just one directory, the result of a large .torrent, was over 5GB).
Meanwhile, you still haven't explained the advantages of putting /home on a separate partition.
If you don't trust that, simply use LVM. Really, this is childsplay.
What part of "average user" don't you understand? If you understand enough to use LVM, you understand enough to set up the partition table the way you see fit. Again, we're talking about Ubuntu's *default* configuration. And I've yet to see an argument for why the default installation should have /home on a separate partition.
The problem with flash content (for me at any rate) has been stability. On 64bit I've tried Adobe's preliminary native 64bit player, and it didn't work.
I think you're in the minority, here. I've been running the native 64-bit flash plugin since Ubuntu 8.10 without any problems. Have you tried reporting the issues you're having?
On a side note. It would be nice if the Ubuntu installer by default created a seperate /home partition. (or maybe they have in the last version or so, I haven't installed from scratch).
Uh, why? For most people, that's just a pain in the ass... suddenly you have to guess how much space you'll want in / and /home, and if you underestimate, you find yourself having to resize filesystems. And for those who care (such as yourself), you can easily set things up that way during the initial install.
And I can tell you that, in my experience on my MythTV backend, Ubuntu 9.04 plus ext4 resulted in kernel panics. Switching back to ext3 resolved the problem.
That said, my laptop has been running a 64-bit 9.04 on ext4 for months now with a hitch... OTOH, I don't tend to beat the hell out of my disk the way my Myth box does.
Given it's a moderated group, you could easily create a web of trust between moderators, and then have the moderators add the keys of valid participants to their chain. From then on, anyone 'pre-moderated' (whatever that means) would only be able to send an email to the list if the mail was signed with a key a moderator had already accepted.
But, of course, you'd need people to actually use PGP/GPG, which seems like an uphill battle...
Uh ? Did you read what a SSD does ?
Did you actually read his post? Regardless of what the drive does underneath the covers, from the OS and disk controller standpoint, the disk is organized into contiguous blocks. If a file is fragmented at a logical level, multiple read/write commands need to be issued to controller in order to manipulate the data on the disk, whereas if the blocks are laid out linearly (again, from the disk controller's perspective), those operations can be done as single commands.
Really, what you want is an ATA command to say "take these two blocks and swap them" (or some sort of equivalent mechanism). On an SSD, this operation would only affect the logical representation, while on a real disk it would actually change the physical representation. You could then use those operations to "defrag" the disk, but in the case of an SSD, all you'd really do is end up reorganizing the logical layout... the physical blocks would never get touched.