Re: Hardlink Pitfalls (was: Patches for REALLY TINY 386 kernels)

[Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com>]

Jörn Engel wrote:
> On Mon, 16 July 2007 22:14:41 +0530, Satyam Sharma wrote:
> > On 7/16/07, Al Boldi <a1426z@gawab.com> wrote:
> > >Satyam Sharma wrote:
> > >> Or just "cp -al" to create multiple trees at (almost) no disk cost
> > >> that won't interfere with each other in any way, and makes the
> > >> development process / generating patchsets trifle easier as well ...
> > >
> > >That would be correct if hardlinks would actually do a CoW on modify,
> > >instead
> > >of misleading the user into thinking he is modifying an independent
> > > file.
> >
> > "patch" already handles this correctly ... and
> > backupcopy=auto,breakhardlink in vim (and something similar in other
> > editors I presume)
>
> Yet even a single program failing to break the link will leave you with
> a mess to sort out.

No kidding!

> The only place that can ensure to always break the
> link is the kernel.  Which is why I wrote the cowlink patches some years
> back.

Can you post a patch against 2.6.22?

> The still need a lot of love to be merge-ready.  But I do use them on a
> daily basis.

Well, if the patch is lean and optional and runtime configurable, then they 
should definitely be considered for inclusion.


Thanks!

--
Al