RAM and ext2

Stefan Sperling stsp at stsp.in-berlin.de
Sun Apr 8 11:47:50 CEST 2007


On Sun, Apr 08, 2007 at 10:49:14AM +0200, Amadeus wrote:
> > Why are you spending so much effort on a workaround for a bug?
> > Fix the bug first.
> 
> Yes, please!

Of course I'd like to see it fixed, too.
If you want it fixed, then by all means, do fix it!

But I've already spent two long weekends on this bug with no result.
I have no motivation to spend more time on it. It's too frustrating.

The bug is rare, it does not affect everyone. Yet it makes DSLinux
almost unusable for those who are affected. I have a workaround
I and others can use that I can implement along with features
I've been wanting all along (ext2 -> multiuser -> email).
This has a higher time spent vs. result ratio for me than hunting
down that stupid bug for ages. 

It could be that the bug will still haunt us somehow even with ext2,
and that we'll really have to fix it eventually. For example, it
could be that the bug does not show on 2GB cards that are partitioned
because all partitions are smaller than 2GB.
In this case the problem might come up again as soon as people
start using cards larger than 2GB (if this is possible).

> So the problem might be in   
> a) the block layer  
> b) the vfat layer
> c) the uClibc layer

If it's in uClibc, maybe an update to the latest uClinux release
will fix it? If dforsi doesn't get around to it, I will probably
import the new uClinux release myself anyway because we need a
current e2fsck.

> d) the shell tab completion

I severly doubt that. I've checked this code very intensly while
trying to hunt the bug down. This is where it crashes in strcpy()
alright, but as far as I can tell it crashes because it got a malformed
string from somewhere else.

Then again I might have missed something, but if anyone starts trying
to fix this, I guess looking at points a,b and c above is more worthwhile.

> And I think that ext2 should be avoided as far as possible because it is 
> a burden for each user which has no linux desktop PC.

I don't see a problem here. FAT support will not be dropped,
so everyone will be able to make their own choice about what 
filesystem to use. This is a good thing. I don't see a problem
with adding a feature for power users, especially if it does not
affect causual users in any way.

-- 
stefan
http://stsp.in-berlin.de                                 PGP Key: 0xF59D25F0
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