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Date:      Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:01:12 +0300
From:      Efstratios Karatzas <gpf.kira@gmail.com>
To:        Attilio Rao <attilio@freebsd.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Gleb Kurtsou <gleb.kurtsou@gmail.com>, kib@freebsd.org, gleb@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: NTFS GSoC Project Idea
Message-ID:  <CAHywV0jKCMsKPbynO2a1C2FiF0yC3MaSpcYjuGKZ9L5vXF8avg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAJ-FndCvM%2BuSEfELGLKvJFvy952Z8x7orcY4a6dTc3_4NDt0kw@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <CAHywV0grxaU9f4HopELdc9hcfZgdUUBmRdvHsT46N%2Bfny_1e6Q@mail.gmail.com> <20120327200631.GA48486@reks> <CAHywV0iSb9Om4FPYCmXLZiRgCdnQj0MEe_7EuNwqf45=E=o2cw@mail.gmail.com> <CAJ-FndCvM%2BuSEfELGLKvJFvy952Z8x7orcY4a6dTc3_4NDt0kw@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Attilio Rao <attilio@freebsd.org> wrote:

> 2012/3/27, Efstratios Karatzas <gpf.kira@gmail.com>:
> > On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Gleb Kurtsou
> > <gleb.kurtsou@gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >> On (26/03/2012 21:13), Efstratios Karatzas wrote:
> >> > Greetings,
> >> >
> >> > I am a FreeBSD GSoC 2010 student, looking to participate in this years
> >> > GSoC. The project that I wish to work on is the FreeBSD NTFS driver.
> >> >
> >> > I 've already discussed my project idea with Attilio@ who suggested
> >> that I
> >> > forward my proposal to the hackers mailing list in order to get more
> >> > feedback and see if there's anyone interested in mentoring a NTFS
> >> project.
> >> >
> >> > The current draft of the technical part of my proposal(pdf & plain
> text)
> >> > can be found here:
> >> >
> >> > http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~std06101/ntfs/ntfs_proposal.tar
> >> >
> >> > The project idea focuses on mp-safing the NTFS driver as well as
> adding
> >> > extra write support. I've tried to merge the two conflicting NTFS
> >> > project
> >> > ideas in the ideas wiki page, into one. One of them suggesting that
> work
> >> > should be done on the current driver (mp-safe it etc) and the other
> one
> >> > suggesting that we port Apple's NTFS driver from scratch. The concept
> is
> >> > that we keep most of our vnode/vfs code (i.e. ntfs_vfsops.c,
> >> ntfs_vnops.c)
> >> > and rework existing infrastructure as needed as well as implement new
> >> > features using Apple's driver as a guide.
> >>
> >> I'm not sure I follow your idea, but I'd suggest sticking to a single
> >> project: either improve FreeBSD NTFS or do the port. FreeBSD and Darwin
> >> ntfs implementations are completely unrelated thus porting features from
> >> Darwin won't be easy.
> >>
> >> > This way, we avoid the major
> >> > changes in Apple's VFS (is there any documentation to be found?) and
> >> > port
> >> > code that won't break current functionality.
> >>
> >> I bet "major changes in Apple's VFS" are easier to deal with than
> >> "merging" two unrelated file systems. XNU VFS is based on FreeBSD 5 VFS
> >> and they still share a lot in common, e.g. vnode operations themselves
> >> are nearly the same, e.g. extended attributes, locking, buffer cache are
> >> different.
> >>
> >> Take a look at HFS+ port. It's unmaintained and outdated but page
> >> contains link to CVS repository snapshot.
> >> http://people.freebsd.org/~yar/hfs/
> >>
> >> > I tried to keep this e-mail brief so If you wish to know more, please
> >> refer
> >> > to the proposal.
> >> >
> >> > Thank you
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> >
> >> > Efstratios "GPF" Karatzas
> >>
> >
> > Since the FreeBSD wiki has two conflicting NTFS ideas, I thought of
> > submitting two proposals: one to work on the current driver and one to
> port
> > Apple's driver and let the FreeBSD team choose, should they wish to pick
> > one of them. Attilio suggested that perhaps a merge of those two ideas
> was
> > better than two separate proposals and this was my attempt to merge those
> > ideas; I hear what you say though.
>
> What I specifically had in mind is:
> - make NTFS mpsafe
> - bugbusting
> - surf in Apple implementation/history, check for bugfixes there and
> import in the FreeBSD implementation
>
> Unfortunately our idea page is not as updated as you want it to be,
> thus it happens to find duplicate ideas list, not well merged, etc.
>
> Attilio
>
>
> --
> Peace can only be achieved by understanding - A. Einstein
>

Here's a draft for a NTFS proposal that focuses on improving our current
driver(mp-safe + extra write support). I believe it's well defined and
shouldn't cause any confusion.

Also a couple of fixes due to Pedro's e-mail (thanks!).

The draft can be found here:

http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~std06101/ntfs/ntfs_mpsafe_proposal.tar

Let me know what you think.

-- 

Efstratios "GPF" Karatzas



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