On 10/9/2011 10:24, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:53:14 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> On 10/8/2011 14:28, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Depends on the filesystem in question.  I think the new upcomer 'btrfs'
>>> is supposed to be transactional.
>>
>> True. I heard recently that one is coming out for Linux. Now, how many
>> programs will actually depend on it? And will it be a half-solution like
>> disk snapshots are in Linux? :-)
>
> Not sure what you mean about 'disk snapshots'.

The ability to take a consistent snapshot of the disk while it's still 
active, and (for example) make a backup of it, without disturbing people 
trying to write to drives you're backing up.

http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm_snapshots

> It doesn't really matter if they've got recognizable records in them.
> Those records are still "blobs" that have to be interpreted by a program.

Well, sure. OK, I'm missing your point, then.  Files are more than just 
blobs of data, or they wouldn't be useful, as you say. They have a meaning 
for the data, even if that meaning isn't stored within the data. But I'm not 
sure what your point is.

> But I'm not saying that because structure can be assigned to it, it's not
> useful.  I'm just pointing out the axiom that data is data is data is
> data.

Sure, I'll grant that. I'm not sure at this point why you're pointing that out.

> So rather than stop the installation and reboot, it seems it would be
> better to queue those things together so a single reboot deals with them
> all.

I think that's basically what they started doing, yes. Remember how often 
NT3.5 rebooted during install?

> But more to the point, what you're essentially saying is that Windows has
> to reboot because the hardware vendor's poor design means their own
> driver can't determine the device correctly unless it's been freshly
> reset.

Possibly. I've read that about some of the hardware. That's part of the 
whole "unified driver" thing going on.

> Of course, Microsoft stole the idea of a progress bar that makes no sense
> from Novell.  Just like BSOD (which they embraced, and then 'enhanced' by
> making it 'blue' instead of 'black'). ;)

Machines have had BSOD since long before MS-Dos was around. :-)

> That made me laugh.  Another area where Linux was ahead in the game
> (arguably, a minor one, but since we're trading barbs.<g>)

Barbs? Trading barbs would imply I care whether Windows is better than Linux 
or vice versa. :-)  Neither is my program, so I don't really care.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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