Re: understanding speculative preallocation

[Jason Rosenberg <jbr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Stan,

Thanks for the info (most of it was, in fact, news to me).  I'm an application developer trying to debug a disk space problem, that's all.  So far, I've tracked it down to being an XFS issue.

So you are saying there's no public information that can correlate XFS versioning to CentOS (or RHEL) versioning?

Sad state of affairs.

If anyone can volunteer this info (if available to you) I'd be much appreciative.

Regardless, is there a version history for XFS vis-a-via mainline Linux?

Thanks,

Jason

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 7/26/2013 12:40 PM, Jason Rosenberg wrote:

> Anyway, I'm surprised that you don't have some list or other way to
> correlate version history of XFS, with os release versions.  I'm guessing
> the version I have is not using the latest/greatest.  We actually have
> another system that uses an older version of the kernel (2.6.32-279), and

2.6.32-279  - this is not a mainline kernel version.  This is a Red Hat
specific string describing their internal kernel release.  It has zero
correlation to any version number of anything else in the world of
mainline Linux.

> If, say you tell me, the mainline xfs code has improved behavior, it would
> be nice to have a way to know which version of CentOS might include that?

IMNSHO, CentOS is a free proprietary chrome plated dog turd.  It's
flashy on the outside and claims it's "ENTERPRISE", "just like RHEL!".
Then you crack it open and find nothing but crap inside.  So you take it
back to the store that gave it away for free and the doors are barred,
the place out of business.  The chrome has peeled off and you're stuck
with crap that difficult to use.  Every time you touch it you get dirty
in some fashion.

RHEL is a proprietary solid chrome turd you pay for.  You can't get to
the inside, but if you find a scratch and 'return' it Red Hat will say
"we can help you fix that".

If you avoid the flashy turds altogether while still plunking down no
cash, and use a distro based entirely on mainline Linux and GNU user
space source, you can get help directly from the folks who wrote the
code you're running because they know what is where.  Whether it be
Linux proper, the XFS subsystem, NFS, Samba, Postix, etc.  Such
distributions are too numerous to mention.  None of them are chrome
plated, none claim to be "just like ENTERPRISE distro X".  I tell all
users of RHEL knock offs every time I see a situation like this:

Either pay for and receive the support that's required for the
proprietary distribution you're running, or use a completely open source
distro based on mainline kernel source and GNU user space.  By using a
RHEL knock off, you're simply locking yourself into an outdated
proprietary code base for which there is no viable support option,
because so few people in the community understand the packaging of the
constituent parts of the RHEL kernels.  This is entirely intentional on
the part of Red Hat, specifically to make the life of CentOS users
painful, and rightfully so.

FYI, many of the folks on the XFS list are Red Hat employees, including
Dave.  They'll gladly assist RHEL customers here if needed.  However, to
support CentOS users, especially in your situation, they'd have to use
Red Hat Inc resources to hunt down the information related to the CentOS
kernel you have that correlates to the RHEL kernel it is copied from.
So they've just consumed Red Hat Inc resources to directly assist a free
competitor who copied their distro.

Thus there's not much incentive to assist CentOS users as they'd in
essence be taking money out of their employer's pocket.  Taken to the
extreme this results in pay cuts, possibly furloughs or pink slips, etc.

Surely this can't be the first time you've run into a free community
support issue with the CentOS kernel.  Surely what I've written isn't
news to you.  Pay Red Hat for RHEL, or switch to Debian, Ubuntu, Open
Suse, etc.  Either way you'll be able to get much better support.

--
Stan