Re: File Versioning for the KDE Desktop...

[Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>]

Hi Steve.

Thanks for your efforts.

Steve - 03.10.24, 22:02:46 CEST:
> I have a package that manages file versioning that has been alpha tested
> with:
> 
>   * bookworm
> 
>   * KDE plasma
> 
> Think like: Windows File versioning/Mac Revert. It is based on inotify.
> [Before you think that couldn't be reliable, hear me out for a
> discussion of safeguards I take to make it so -at some future point I
> could eventually do the heavy lift to implement it as a shim to the EXT4
> driver., but for now: it works..]

I wonder have you considered proposing your project to KDE upstream?

They could provide valuable review of your approach and also this way your 
software would more easily be accessible to other Linux distributions as 
well. Also they might have ideas on how to best integrate it with 
components of their desktop.

I wonder especially as their Baloo desktop search already places an 
inotify watches on every directory and sub directory that is included in 
desktop search. (Also Akonadi AFAIK places inotify watches on local 
maildir storage directories.)

This led me to set:

% cat /etc/sysctl.d/desktop.conf 
fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 500000

As I have a huge lot of folders with files and a lot of folders in KMail.

Also regarding an Ext4 filesystem driver… I wonder whether such a 
functionality could be placed at least partly within VFS layer so it can 
be used in multiple filesystems. I do not use Ext4 except for /boot these 
times. Almost all my filesystems are BTRFS currently and I am monitoring 
BCacheFS and testing it for some scratch filesystem currently. Many also 
may use XFS these times, especially with large file systems, also AFAIK it 
is default with RHEL based distributions and maybe even still with 
separate /home on SLES based distributions.

Just some thoughts and ideas on how to approach your project. Maybe you 
thought about these already. Do as you wish with the ideas I provided. No 
need to take time to reply to me about it.

All the best for your project.

Thanks again,
-- 
Martin