From owner-freebsd-fs Wed Jul 15 14:43:38 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA21021 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Wed, 15 Jul 1998 14:43:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gatewaya.anheuser-busch.com (gatewaya.anheuser-busch.com [151.145.250.252]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA21013 for ; Wed, 15 Jul 1998 14:43:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Matthew.Alton@anheuser-busch.com) Received: by gatewaya.anheuser-busch.com; id QAA03837; Wed, 15 Jul 1998 16:41:02 -0500 Received: from stlabcexg004.anheuser-busch.com(stlabcexg004 151.145.101.160) by gatewaya via smap (V2.1) id xma003816; Wed, 15 Jul 98 16:40:52 -0500 Received: by stlabcexg004.anheuser-busch.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) id <3851VLPY>; Wed, 15 Jul 1998 22:44:02 +0100 Message-ID: <31B3F0BF1C40D11192A700805FD48BF901776611@STLABCEXG011> From: "Alton, Matthew" To: "'Terry Lambert'" Cc: FreeBSD-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: LFS & soft updates Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 22:44:29 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > -----Original Message----- > From: Terry Lambert [SMTP:tlambert@primenet.com] > Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 1998 4:10 PM > To: Alton, Matthew > Cc: FreeBSD-fs@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: Re: LFS & soft updates > > > Just for fun - are lfs and Kirk McKusick's Ganger-Patt soft update > > scheme necessarily mutually exclusive? I don't know anything > > about soft updates yet. Just wondered if I should look at the > > GP papers before designing LFS v.2. > > Note: Doing this work would be a good Master's Thesis project; > solving the general problem such that you could stack FS layers > arbitrarily using the same underlying graph code would probably be > worth a PhD Dissertation. > [snip] > If you want soft updates in the LFS code, which might make *some* > sense, in terms of reducing the work for the cleaner, and adding > implicit write gathering, and similar benefits to LFS, then you > should do this: > [snip] To a first approximation, I'm parsing: "Well, it would be a real fine piece of academic calisthenics but I don't think you'll get much mileage out of it in the real world." ;-) Jeez, I do rem- ember "studying" this stuff one weekend and getting good and swamped in graph theory and thinking that I had come up with a better model but then realizing that it was only better for the special class of objects that I was obsessed with at the time. As a practical expedient I'm going to see if my "generalized seg- ment bubble sort" fever dream is valid and useful for the special case of append-only operations. It takes advantage of a small predictive capability to switch the positions of consecutive seg- ments should this be deemed a win by the algorithm. If the thing requires a prohibitively far-sighted prediction or if it winds up simply restating everything I've learned so far on the subject in the general case, well, then... back to the drawing board. > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message