>
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >> deeper fs knowledge however. If one finds themselves frequently
> >> experiencing corruption problems, it might pay to learn the
> >> filesystem internals. A good day or two's reading I believe
> >> should give plenty of info to handle most situations. There are
> >> several howto's, and on the web there are ext2 documents by Ted
> >> T'so I believe, and perhaps others.. I've got a few kicking
> >> around. ext2 isn't that hard to understand, although I'm a bit
> >> rusty on it right now since I haven't had to use debugfs in over
> >> 3 years. ;o)
> >>
> >
> >Problem about reading for a couple days is that this implies user's
> >job is knowing everything about system administration.
>
> I think we're speaking in different terms here.. ;o) If someone
> _is_ a system admin, in any way, then if they don't know how to
> sys admin, then they shouldn't be.
>
> If it is an end user system, then obviously they shouldn't have
> to be joe sys-admin, so I agree with you in that respect.
>
> >This is possible if eiuser is a consultant or user is a system
> >administrator in a big compnay so there are hundred people
> >around user going with the task of making money for the
> >company. If company is three of four persons or if user is a
> >private individual this kind of "learning overhead" is
> >unacceptable (no time left for real work).
>
> If someone is running Linux on a business system, and has
> problems that they can't deal with, they should hire someone who
> _can_ deal with the problem to do so. This is business, and lost
> time means money. If that is unaffordable, then they should
> consider the alternative operating systems and their associated
> costs.
>
> As it stands now, for joe user or joe sysadmin, fsck is a
> possible fact of life. Either one minimizes the chances of
> problems in the first place, by using a UPS, or some other
> method, or they use a different filesystem. fsck is unlikely to
> get any easier anytime soon. Perhaps it will get a GUI frontend
> or something but I wouldn't count on it anytime soon. If you
> look at a Windows system, SCANDISK presenting the user with a
> "4234 lost clusters found in 34 chains, fix?" is no different
> from what fsck is doing. The alternative in either case is to
> either auto-yes, auto-no, or leave the filesystem corrupt. It is
> really not something you encounter every day on a home system for
> joe user however, so I don't see it to be a big issue. If
> someone _is_ getting it a lot, then they should use the mailing
> lists, for support to find out why and possibly try a journalled
> filesystem.
>
> My main point is that as long as one uses ext2fs, and has unclean
> mounts, fsck is going to run, and you either learn it - which may
> be impossible for some, or completely undesireable, or you
> reformat or reinstall (windows methodology). The latter is sad,
> but what other option is there. Operating system recovery in
> _any_ OS is not for the beginner, and will lead often to complete
> reinstalls. Linux is no different. Even a journalled fs can
> become corrupt too, if a bad driver or something in-kernel
> garbles the disk, such as bad parameters passed to hdparm. So
> the problem isn't entirely just a filesystem feature one, but
> rather a general computer one. There is no easy answer other
> than "learn what you can about whatever OS's you use so you can
> fix them yourself when they break", or "pay someone to fix it for
> you", or "reinstall often".
>
> Sadly, those are the choices. If someone is patient enough
> though with problems they have, they can get pretty good help on
> these mailing lists. I would rather help someone with fsck, and
> related utils than see them lose data and reinstall.
>
My main point is that this is not proprietary Unix where cost
virtually ensures only relatively big organizations (the needs of
smalleer ones could be handled by cheaper systems) use it and thus you
can design basing on the paradigm the system adminstrator is a
dedicated one.
Since Linux is cheaper it can go where Unix can't go and constraints
in smaller organizations are different.
About the hiring of a consultant:
1) What if the nearest one is at 60 miles in bad roads?
2) What if the user's job could require intervention at 9 pm? This is
charged extras.
3) Why the user should pay for what is objectively a design blunder (ie
designing without paying attention to his constraints)?
4) Which car would you buy? The one where replacing a punctured tire or
filling the gas tank requires you pay a trained garagist with special tools
or the one you can do these things yourself?
--
Jean Francois Martinez
Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org
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