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debian-user-digest Digest V2007 #2094

From: <debian-user-digest-request(at)lists.debian.org>
Date: Fri Aug 03 2007 - 23:39:21 EDT


Content-Type: text/plain

debian-user-digest Digest Volume 2007 : Issue 2094

Today's Topics: 

  Re: Opinions XFS                      [ Jose Luis Rivas Contreras  ]
  Re: converting file system            [ Nate Duehr  ]
  Re: Opinions XFS                      [ Jose Luis Rivas Contreras  ]
  Re: MS Word under wine/crossover off  [ Tyler Smith  ]
  Re: Opinions XFS                      [ Douglas Allan Tutty  ]
  Re: Opinions XFS                      [ michael@estone.ca ]
  Re: Opinions XFS                      [ David Brodbeck 

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:37:31 -0400


From: Jose Luis Rivas Contreras <ghostbar38@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Subject: Re: Opinions XFS


Message-ID: <46B3CA4B.90603@gmail.com>


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Sergio Belkin wrote:

> Hi I was reading http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/index.html and was ama=

zed=20

> because XFS powerful features. But I'd like opinions if xfs should be a=

 good=20

> alternative to ext3 in typical cases, or if it should be relegated to=20
> critical missions servers.


>=20

> Thanks in advance!

I love XFS!!


Do you need help?X

The only thing I cannot do with XFS is boot from that disk so I need to
make a `/boot' partition to get it to boot but the rest is works great!!
Smoothly :)



Regards,


Jose Luis.


--=20



ghostbar on Linux/Debian 'sid' x86_64-SMP - #382503
Weblog: http://ghostbar.ath.cx/ - http://linuxtachira.org
http://debian.org.ve - irc.debian.org #debian-ve #debian-devel-es
San Crist=C3=B3bal, Venezuela. http://chaslug.org.ve
Fingerprint =3D 3E7D 4267 AFD5 2407 2A37  20AC 38A0 AD5B CACA B118



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Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:23:17 -0400


From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Subject: Re: converting file system

Message-ID: <20070804002317.GA15001@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Do you need more help?X

Content-Disposition: inline


On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 06:44:39PM -0500, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:
 

Can we help you?X
> Is there a way to convert from ext2 to anything?
> 

I think its the tried-and-true method of tar by way of spare space on
some device.



This is a great reason to be using LVM with separate LVs.  Need to
convert?  Create a new LV, make the new filesystem, tar the data over to
it.  When everything is working, delete the old LV.  If you need extra
space during the transition, borrow a drive and add it to the VG.



Doug.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:25:54 -0400


From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Subject: Re: converting file system

Message-ID: <20070804002554.GB15001@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 05:15:42PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
 

> from the RM bug report:
> 
> - The final step in converting a filesystem, reordering the blocks of
>   the target filesystem, is apparently programmed in a very inefficient
>   way, and it can take weeks for large filesystems to complete
>   convertfs.
> ----------------------^^^^^^
> 
> 
> imagine if you didn't know that going in... 
> 
Can't find what you're looking for?X

In order for that to appear in the report, someone must have found out
the hard way.  To know that it took weeks (instead of, say, a weekend),
someone had the patience of Job to know that after weeks it did
complete.  



Doug.



Date:  Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:29:13 +0900


From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>


To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Subject:  Re: Opinions XFS


Message-ID:  <87k5scm9ba.fsf@catnip.gol.com>
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=us-ascii



Sam Leon <leon.mailinglist.36@gmail.com> writes:

>> Hi I was reading 
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/index.html and was
>> amazed because XFS powerful features. But I'd like opinions if xfs
>> should be a good alternative to ext3 in typical cases, or if it should
>> be relegated to critical missions servers.
>


> From what I have read xfs and jfs can corrupt data quickly if the drive
> is not properly unmounted first (ie, forced reboot, power outage)

>

> People generally stick with ext3 because there is more support for it.

What about speed?  I've noticed that on some systems I use that have XFS
filesystems, many file operations are sloooooooow -- in particular,
deleting files seems to take forever.  Ext2/3 seem much, much faster in
general...



-Miles


-- 
Suburbia: where they tear out the trees and then name streets after them.


Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:31:53 -0600
From: Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-ID: <46B3C8F9.3070305@natetech.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 05:15:42PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>  

>> from the RM bug report:
>>
>> - The final step in converting a filesystem, reordering the blocks of
>>   the target filesystem, is apparently programmed in a very inefficient
>>   way, and it can take weeks for large filesystems to complete
>>   convertfs.
>> ----------------------^^^^^^
>>
>>
>> imagine if you didn't know that going in... 
>>

> 
> In order for that to appear in the report, someone must have found out
> the hard way.  To know that it took weeks (instead of, say, a weekend),
> someone had the patience of Job to know that after weeks it did
> complete.  


Or someone exaggerated.  Sheesh... no need to hero-worship the bug 
report.  The bigger the filesystem, the longer it would take, nothing 
rocket-science there... and if it's inefficient, you could get away with 
saying "weeks"... but that doesn't mean it really did.

Nate


Don't know where to look next?X

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:56:50 -0400
From: Jose Luis Rivas Contreras <ghostbar38@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <46B3CED2.707@gmail.com>
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Sergio Belkin wrote:
>> JL: The only thing I cannot do with XFS is boot from that disk so I ne=
ed to
>> JL: make a `/boot' partition to get it to boot but the rest is works
>> great!! JL: Smoothly :)
>> JL:
>> JL: Regards,
>> JL: Jose Luis.
>=20

> Thanks for your opinions, so is not possible boot from a xfs partition?=


>=20
No, GRUB doesn't support booting from XFS's partitions :/ yet :)

Regards,
Jose Luis.
--=20

ghostbar on Linux/Debian 'sid' x86_64-SMP - #382503
Weblog: http://ghostbar.ath.cx/ - http://linuxtachira.org
http://debian.org.ve - irc.debian.org #debian-ve #debian-devel-es
San Crist=C3=B3bal, Venezuela. http://chaslug.org.ve
Fingerprint =3D 3E7D 4267 AFD5 2407 2A37  20AC 38A0 AD5B CACA B118


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Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:40:48 -0600
From: Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Message-ID: <46B3CB10.9050700@natetech.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
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Francois Duranleau wrote:

> On 8/3/07, Brad Sawatzky <brad+debian@swatter.net> wrote:

>> Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought he got the errors with the old
>> kernel (and had for a long time) but they did not trigger a filesystem
>> check.  My hunch was that the 2.6.x IDE driver (or ext3 driver) is handling
>> the error condition in a different way.  Perhaps not retrying at all on the
>> CRC error, or maybe having a shorter time-out on the retry, who knows...
>>
>> If he only gets the errors under 2.6.x and not 2.4.27 then it looks more
>> like a driver issue.  Perhaps his 2.6.x kernel is using the new 'merged'
>> SATA+PATA subsystem to handle his PATA drive instead of the old ATA/ATAPI
>> driver and that is causing the problem.

> 
> It seems like I wasn't clear. Let me try to clarify:
> 
> On 2.4.27, I get the CRC errors (not at boot time, later, and all the
> time thereafter),
> and I've been having them for many years. I mentionned just in case
> there might be
> a link with my problem. Otherwise, I am not trying to solve this
> particular problem.


Time to fix the root-cause problem.  Get the CRC errors to stop on the 
old kernel first.


> On 2.6.x, at boot time, errors are reported on the initial filesystem
> check. I do
> not know if I still have those CRC errors.


Fix problem #1... then fix problem #2... (GRIN)...

You're lucky.

Most times I've seen CRC errors like that, serious corruption was 
happening on the disk and or the disk itself was about to take a nose-dive.

There's no way I would have EVER let low-level errors like CRC errors go 
on for as long as you have.  They'd be a performance hit, if nothing 
else... but at that low a level, if CRC is having to "rescue" you from 
IDE bus problems... regularly... that's just downright dangerous to run 
anything important that way for any length of time.

It's logging the errors for a reason... clean 'em up!  (GRIN)

Nate



Date: 04 Aug 2007 00:24:57 GMT
From: Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@mail.mcgill.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: MS Word under wine/crossover office
Message-ID: <slrnfb7la8.5tg.tyler.smith@blackbart.mynetwork>

On 2007-08-03, Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:
>

> I don't suppose that, while it has to be in .doc format, it doesn't have
> to be editable?  Could you make each page an .eps (or other graphic
> image) and plonk it down on a page in OO and then save it in .doc?  It
> would then _look_ correctly when viewed with Word and it would be a .doc
> file, just not an editable one.

>

> Just an idea; I've never used Word or OO.

>

Now that would be clever! Unfortunately the files do need to be
editable in some cases.

Thanks,

Tyler



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:52:24 -0300
From: Sergio Belkin <sebelk@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-Id: <200708032152.25195.sebelk@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="utf-8"
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=2D-- El Vie 03 Ago 2007, Jose Luis Rivas Contreras encontr=C3=B3 un teclad=
o y tipe=C3=B3=20
lo siguiente:=20

> JL: Sergio Belkin wrote:
> JL: > Hi I was reading http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/index.html and was
> amazed JL: > because XFS powerful features. But I'd like opinions if xfs
> should be a good JL: > alternative to ext3 in typical cases, or if it
> should be relegated to JL: > critical missions servers.
> JL: >
> JL: > Thanks in advance!
> JL:
> JL: I love XFS!!
> JL:
> JL: The only thing I cannot do with XFS is boot from that disk so I need =

to

> JL: make a `/boot' partition to get it to boot but the rest is works
> great!! JL: Smoothly :)
> JL:
> JL: Regards,
> JL: Jose Luis.


Thanks for your opinions, so is not possible boot from a xfs partition?

=2D-=20
Sergio Belkin
Tel=C3=A9fonos 15-5494-5143 //  4788-8605
=2D---------------------------------------



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:09:20 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <20070804010920.GC15001@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 07:04:44PM -0500, Sam Leon wrote:

> Sergio Belkin wrote:
> >Hi I was reading http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/index.html and was amazed 
> >because XFS powerful features. But I'd like opinions if xfs should be a 
> >good alternative to ext3 in typical cases, or if it should be relegated to 
> >critical missions servers.
> >
> 
> From what I have read xfs and jfs can corrupt data quickly if the drive 
> is not properly unmounted first (ie, forced reboot, power outage)
> 
> People generally stick with ext3 because there is more support for it.


Not this thread again.  I went from ext3 to JFS because I have frequent
power failures and Sarge's ext3 would get invisible mysterious errors
that ended up with a corrupted file system, especially if the power
failed during a fsck.  At the time, I didn't go with XFS because at that
time there were problems with XFS and loosing data.  

I haven't done a recent comparison but both file systems were developed
by their companies to do slightly different things.  IBM was focused on
transaction-oriented servers for e-commerce.  If the power failed or the
server crashed, they wanted the fsck to go as fast as possible.  So the
filesystem will come up quickly in a good state; that some files could
possibly be missing is a good reason for backups.  So the notion that
JFS isn't good at unclean shutdowns goes against one of the design
criteria.  SGI's XFS was more for compute-oriented boxes (XFS is used in
the new Cray super-computers) and grahpics workstations.  The
filesystems can be staggeringly huge and so also need a quick fsck in
the event of power failure.  In both cases, down time either during fsck
or fixing of missing or broken files represents real financial burden.

So they're both designed to do basically the same thing from companies
with two different target markets.  At any given point, the difference
will be how well Linux handles them; what subset of the features are
implemented.  When I chose JFS, XFS had some problems.  Based on posts
to recent threads on this topic, I believe that they both work fine now.  

As for the features, there was an article in the Linux Gazatte that I'm
looking up now...

http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html

that does some real-world benchmark comparisons.  Its from May, 2004 and
the kernel is a 2.4.  However, it may be useful.  

Try a google search for 'XFS JFS Linux'

You've got sgi's site for XFS.  Here's IBM's JFS site:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-jfs.html

Doug.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:10:22 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <20070804011022.GD15001@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 08:37:31PM -0400, Jose Luis Rivas Contreras wrote:
 

> I love XFS!!
> 
> The only thing I cannot do with XFS is boot from that disk so I need to
> make a `/boot' partition to get it to boot but the rest is works great!!
> Smoothly :)


Why can't you boot from it?  Doesn't GRUB support booting from XFS?  It
does boot from JFS.

Doug.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:05:20 -0400
From: Jose Luis Rivas Contreras <ghostbar38@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <46B3DEE0.8060703@gmail.com>
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Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 08:37:31PM -0400, Jose Luis Rivas Contreras wro=

te:

> =20

>> I love XFS!!
>>
>> The only thing I cannot do with XFS is boot from that disk so I need t=
o
>> make a `/boot' partition to get it to boot but the rest is works great=
!!
>> Smoothly :)
>=20

> Why can't you boot from it?  Doesn't GRUB support booting from XFS?  It=

> does boot from JFS.

>=20

> Doug.

>=20
>=20
No, GRUB doesn't support booting from XFS and is impossible anyway to be
 wrong when you're installing your system since the installer warns you
about this. I just made a 5M partition for `/boot' and problem solved.

Regards,
Jose Luis.
--=20

ghostbar on Linux/Debian 'sid' x86_64-SMP - #382503
Weblog: http://ghostbar.ath.cx/ - http://linuxtachira.org
http://debian.org.ve - irc.debian.org #debian-ve #debian-devel-es
San Crist=C3=B3bal, Venezuela. http://chaslug.org.ve
Fingerprint =3D 3E7D 4267 AFD5 2407 2A37  20AC 38A0 AD5B CACA B118


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Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 19:15:39 -0700
From: Alan Ianson <agianson@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Blurry fonts in OpenOffice and qt4 appliations
Message-Id: <200708031915.39772.agianson@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="iso-8859-1"
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On Fri August 3 2007 12:48, Vasil Benov wrote:

> Hi all,

>

> The fonts in OpenOffice and qt4(skype 1.4 beta) applications are blurry.
> Has anyone encountered the same problem?
> There is a thread on the Ubuntu mailing list, but it does not offer any
> solution.


I noticed that too a while ago, one of the fonts I was using (sorry, I forget 
which one) seemed to have a rainbow color effect to it for reasons unknown. I 
changed the system font to something else and it has looked fine since.


Confused? Frustrated?X

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:29:55 -0700
From: michael@estone.ca
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <20070803192955.jjt1441cpogwgwko@estone.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain;
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Quoting Sergio Belkin <sebelk@gmail.com>:


> Hi I was reading http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/index.html and was amazed
> because XFS powerful features. But I'd like opinions if xfs should be a go=

od

> alternative to ext3 in typical cases, or if it should be relegated to
> critical missions servers.

>

XFS is a rock solid filesystem. So is EXT3. XFS generally will be =20
faster than EXT3, but only for medium to large files. EXT3 is faster =20
with really small files around 1K or so. Depending on your needs, you =20
may want to benchmark the 2 filesystems to compare. Bonnie++ is a nice =20
tool to use, as it lets you change the test file sizes around.

XFS and grub do not work nicely together, therefore you'll need /boot =20
mounted with EXT3, everything else can be XFS, even / .

XFS can destroy files, but its more of myth when people say it will =20
just magically destroy files. XFS is designed this way as its a =20
meta-data only journalling filesystem. Bottom line, is that only =20
recently written files, within 60 seconds of write, will get hosed if =20
your system suddenly loses power. Therefore, if you use XFS, use a =20
UPS, of which will auto halt your box in case of power loss. Use good =20
hardware, and of course, have good backups.
Also, use smartmontools to monitor your drives. Its not 100% perfect =20
against failing drives, but its better than nothing.

I would not recommend XFS for a workstation environment where its your =20
system drive. Why? Only because you might have to hard reboot it every =20
once in awhile. Perhaps for storing media type files on a seperate =20
filesystem though.

I'm quite impressed with the stability and performance of XFS and =20
having been using it for over a year on production servers that run =20
mail, file and web serving. (x86_64 etch)

Cheers,



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 19:44:03 -0700
From: David Brodbeck <brodbd@u.washington.edu>
To: List Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-Id: <05FC4C67-20FA-4D79-9477-A14CFD3E01C9@u.washington.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
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On Aug 3, 2007, at 5:29 PM, Miles Bader wrote:

> What about speed?  I've noticed that on some systems I use that  
> have XFS
> filesystems, many file operations are sloooooooow -- in particular,
> deleting files seems to take forever.  Ext2/3 seem much, much  
> faster in
> general...


That's almost precisely the opposite of my experience.

I have a MythTV system where there are lots of large (2+ gigabyte)  
video recordings.  With ext3, deletes would block all writes to the  
filesystem until they completed, causing skips if there was an  
ongoing recording.  With XFS I haven't had any such problems.

I think there's a bit of Not Invented Here syndrome with XFS that  
causes people to be wary of it, but in my experience it's a rock- 
solid filesystem.  However, it doesn't journal data, only metadata,  
so you may lose a bit of data if the system goes down uncleanly.  The  
filesystem will be protected from corruption, however.  (Ext3fs can  
also be configured this way, but its default is to journal data as  
well as metadata.)



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 19:46:40 -0700
From: David Brodbeck <brodbd@u.washington.edu>
To: List Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-Id: <395C3441-1CB4-4A54-A680-0E08FFCBC84E@u.washington.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On Aug 3, 2007, at 4:44 PM, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:


> Is there a way to convert from ext2 to anything?


Well, you can convert from ext2 to ext3 just by adding a journal with  
tune2fs and remounting.  The actual on-disk format is identical; the  
journal is just a special 'file.'



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 23:08:57 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Opinions XFS
Message-ID: <20070804030857.GA16682@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 07:44:03PM -0700, David Brodbeck wrote:
 

> I have a MythTV system where there are lots of large (2+ gigabyte)  
> video recordings.  With ext3, deletes would block all writes to the  
> filesystem until they completed, causing skips if there was an  
> ongoing recording.  With XFS I haven't had any such problems.
> 
> I think there's a bit of Not Invented Here syndrome with XFS that  
> causes people to be wary of it, but in my experience it's a rock- 
> solid filesystem.  However, it doesn't journal data, only metadata,  
> so you may lose a bit of data if the system goes down uncleanly.  The  
> filesystem will be protected from corruption, however.  (Ext3fs can  
> also be configured this way, but its default is to journal data as  
> well as metadata.)


I think that this is another reason for having different mount points
each with the best filesystem for it.  At the current state (history is
history), for reliability you probably want ext3, so use that on system
filesystems and for storing backups.  For high performance, expecially
in a graphic environment, use XFS (which makes sense given XFS comes
from Silicon _Graphics_), which really shines at handling large files
(e.g. movies).  For databases, you may want JFS, which is designed for
transactional data and handles many small files well too; many databases
don't do a sync so a power failure can mess up the data even if the
underlying filesystem survives intact, so any loss caused by JFS would
be moot.

Based on this discussion, I'll be re-evaluating my current set up.
Thank you.

Doug.

End of debian-user-digest Digest V2007 Issue #2094
**************************************************

Received on Fri Aug  3 23:36:10 2007

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Aug 09 2007 - 19:05:39 EDT

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