In article <cistron.3947AD48.807D1812@Mutz.com>,
Marc Mutz <Marc@Mutz.com> wrote:
>Paul Jakma wrote:
>> who cares if we break compatibility with distribution tools?[1]
>> Anyone who gives a toss about NFS is already running with the
>> patches. (and if they're not then they're cursing linux nfs
>> anyway...)
>
>That is not true. Look back at the 2.2.12-pre patches and the reason why
>raid-0.90 vanished again (being introduced in 2.2.12-preX) in 2.2.12.
>One argument for stuffing it in then was "all people doing serious raid
>are already patching 0.90 in". Now look at the errata for 2.2.16. What?
>fix md? Why? everone is using new raid, no? NO.
I was one of the people who objected to this change, for several reasons:
1. You would not be able to use a new kernel with an existing RAID
setup on, say, /usr. You'd boot halfway, then you would have to
get networking going, ftp the new tools etc
2. If 2.2.12 proved unstable there would be no way to go back- the
new raidtools didn't work with 2.2.11 raid
3. This stuff mucks around with your _data on the disk_ - it better
be damn stable and backwards compatible.
If the RAID people would have made sure that the new raidtools knew
how to talk to the existing 2.2.x md implementation, the upgrade
would have been painless - install new raidtools while still under
2.2.11, upgrade to 2.2.12, everything works - if 2.2.12 was unstable
you could go back to 2.2.11
Now, for knfsd this is less an issue, since your system will boot fine
even without a working knfsd, and it's much easier to upgrade/downgrade
knfsd on a complete working system.
However if/when the new kernel NFS code goes into a 2.2.x kernel, the
new NFS tools should work with all 2.2.x kernels - 2.2.16 as well
as 2.2.18. That way you can back out of the new kernel without having
to downgrade your utilities. As I assume that 2.4.x will have the same
NFS code this will have to be addressed anyway.
I also hope that the latest raidtools or raidutils for the 2.4.x kernel
are able to work with a 2.2.x kernel as well so that I can experiment
with 2.4.0 when it is released but will be able to switch back to
2.2.x without reinstalling half the utilities
Mike.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 15 2000 - 21:00:32 EST