Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 08:33:39 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: UFS Message-ID: <199810161533.IAA07038@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <19981015181950.D14754@futuresouth.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 18:19:50 -0500 >From: Stormy Henderson <stormy@futuresouth.com> >A happy camper (Jonathan Chen, jonc@pinnacle.co.nz) once wrote... >> UFS is *WAY-DIFFERENT* from MS-type file-systems. You're welcome to >> try, but interest is low. >On the contrary, interest is high...but among the newer users, not the >developers. The developers already have systems setup and configured >perfectly; they have no need for resizing partitions because they already >know what sizes they need for what they do. I submit that alternative explanations for developers' lack of visible effort being expended in this direction may well exist... and that the conditions you posit are quite unlikely to be as widespread as the above might indicate. For example, I have found at least one exceedingly notable partition mis-sizing on my part (for a news server -- and the mis-sizing was exacerbated by UUNET's lack of ability or willingness to enable us to make use of one of the features of INN). I used symlinks to circumvent the problem (meeting with a modicum of success) until I could devote the time to fix it (by backing everything up, re-partitioning, and restoring). >Us less experienced users, >however, have no clue. We either take the defaults or strike out on our >own, and with disappointing regularity, neither path quite fits our needs. Or we (less experienced with FreeBSD, but not UNIX) know how to circumvent or resolve the problem. Or are you only concerned with those who are new to FreeBSD and who happen to be familiar with one particular (form of) non-FreeBSD environment? >So the users are correct to ask for a tool to help ease the transition to >FreeBSD. "The transition to FreeBSD" from what? In order to explain something, it is often useful to be able to liken parts of the new thing to something that is already familiar to the other person(s). Assuming that (in this case) all (or just the important) persons new to FreeBSD are familiar with Microsoft environments may well be wonderful for some, but I find it useless (at best). >Of course, the developers know how hard it would be to code something like >this, while the users can but think, "MSDOS has partition resizers, even >in shareware, surely FreeBSD can compete here too." We have no concept of >the differences between the filesystems, nor the inherent difficulty that >this project may present, given the vastly more complicated FS. ??!? I'm *not* a "developer" -- but I certainly understand the basics of the FFS. Further, it never once crossed my mind that "MSDOS has..." anything at all; I don't use it, and have rarely tried. Thus, although I am a person who has no concept of the differences between the FFS and whatever approach(es) Microsoft may have used, I certainly don't share your perspective on this. >So the developers are correct to maintain that such a tool is unfeasible, >given the challenge it presents, their time restraints, and the other >priorities that beset them. Folks who might be sufficiently motivated to write something are welcome to do so. The entire source code is available, as are resources such as: Marshall Kirk McKusick, et al.: The Design an Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System, Addison-Wesley, 1996 ISBN: 0-201-54979-4. I direct your attention to chapters 7 & 8. In the mean time, the tried-and-true UNIX approach is to take the machine in question down, back up the affected partitions, re-size the partitions, newfs them, restore, do some reality checks, and back them up again. The more modern approach is to use a filestore that allows dynamic re-sizing of partitions. As I recall, AIX permits this, as did (does?) DG/UX (to an extent (urrgghh -- no pun intended, for anyone else with an IBM mainframe background)). >But don't say interest is low. (c: As someone else pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing, not quoting; I'm using the quote marks for grouping), the primary useful indicator of "interest level" is "effort at designing and implementing a solution." david -- David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199810161533.IAA07038>