Re: Linux filesystems was [Re: Debian cd supporting ext4.]
On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:46:29 +0200 Aniruddha
<mailingdotlist@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have done some testing with Debian stable in Virtualbox and I have
> to say XFS works as advertised. I did power off the virtual machine
> several times when working in Gnome / copying files. And I did power
> off the virtual 5 times in a row when booting. Nothing happened.
> Each time the virtual machine booted without problems.
>
> I have to say, file system creating and file system checking is
> lightning fast. I am very impressed. Next I'll test XFS on my
> laptop.
Although I have no reason to believe that XFS is flawed, your test is
not proof of that.
Most journaling and similar bugs are found only in rare conditions.
You would need to conduct your test hundreds of thousands of times,
under a variety of conditions, including differing hardware cache
reorder policies, differing file system loads, differing numbers
of concurrent processes within the kernel code paths, etc.
Real torture tests done by people trying to nail down bugs often
involve millions of iterations in randomized test harnesses. Five
tests is hardly enough to find even common bugs.
If a test like the one you conducted were meaningful, the jobs of
systems programmers would be much simpler. We could just try
something a couple of times by hand and we would know if our code was
flawless. Sadly, the world does not work that way.
--
Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com
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