Re: Hurd features (continued)

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 12:11:57PM +1300, Shams wrote:

> Regarding metadata: I mean in the filesystem. Currently ext2 is used
> as the default filesystem for Hurd. Now if you have a look at Reiser4
> (or similar) then it has the possibility of assigning attributes (key
> - value pairs) to a file or directory.

This is called "extended attributes" (xattr), and works for ext2 as well
AFAIK. (The Hurd implementation doesn't support it, though...)

> Linux for example has moved
> >from ext2 as being the default fs a long time ago and now uses ext3
> >as the
> default filesystem.

Which, as you may know, is almost identical to ext2 but for the
journalling.

> Also Reiser3 has been merged into the mainstream kernel too and I
> think Reiser4 will be a likely candidate in the near future to be
> merged into mainstream too.

Actually, it doesn't look that well for Reiser4. Reiser3 is practically
unmaintained, and will probably drop out of the standard kernel soon.
(SuSE, which was the only major distributor pushing it, already switched
to ext3.) The Linux developers for this and other reasons are thus very
scpetical about accepting any new Reiserfs version.

> So what progress have or are we making to use something like ext3,
> Reiser3, Reiser4 or XFS or similar in Hurd as the default filesystem?

Nobody is currently working on it. ext3/ext4 would be nice (though not
too high priority I'd say).

Other FSes are rather uninteresting -- too much trouble for the little
advantages they offer. And in the long run, we problably need a native
Hurd filesystem to make good use of hurdish features anyways...

-antrik-