RE: cachefs on linux

[Perez-Gonzalez, Inaky]

> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
> 
> ...
>
> There are a lot of things we _could_ add to filesystems, E.G.:
> 
> * Appending to a read-only filesystem on a separate volume

That can be done with a union fs.

> * File versioning

There was a thread one or two months ago regarding all this,
grep the archives.

> * Transparent, variable compression

There was a project to do this in ext2, but I don't remember
what happened to it - I think that at the end is simpler to
do that at the user level (think something like Gnome VFS or
KDE's KIOs).

> * Format conversion, (I.E. write a png file to a filesystem, and it is
> 			   automatically visible as half a dozen other
> 			   formats, without them actually existing on
> 			   the disk)

Mr. Van Riel? Where are you?

> * Priorities, (E.G. temp files could have a bit to indicate that we
> 		    don't really care how long they remain in
> 		    write-cache, instead of flushing them along with
> 		    other more-important-to-get-to-the-oxide data)

Having a tmpfs mounted in /tmp does the trick, more or less. 
Then it is a matter of discipline: if a file is temporary, 
stick it somewhere in /tmp.

> * WORM mode, (I.E. start at block 1 and use blocks sequentially, never
> 		   re-using blocks - makes a tape somewhat usable as a
> 		   block device)

What for? They are too slow; given the price of a gigabyte now, 
and taking into account that IDE drives can store more than tapes,
it makes little sense (I would even say for long-term storage).
YMMV, though.

Cheers,

Iñaky Pérez-González -- Not speaking for Intel -- all opinions are my own
(and my fault)