Re: RAID HOWTOs

[James Manning <jmm@raleigh.ibm.com>]

[ Thursday, January 20, 2000 ] Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> > He posted it to lpd-submit, but we underlined that he was submitting a
> > document with the same title as another one, although it talks about a
> > different software package.
> 
> Drat.  Double drat.  

"different software package" seems a dubious distinction at best.
The "old" style is 0.4x and before, the "new" is 0.90... that
a package has improved dramatically doesn't mean it's not the
same package.  Worst case the previous HOWTO should get renamed to
Old-Software-RAID and an intro section of the up-to-date HOWTO should
refer to its existance for people using older RAID.

> > He understood the problem, and agreed to look for a good solution to
> > the issue. I think just choosing two different names and keeping both
> > documents may be the path of least resistance, waiting for a more
> > organic solution.
> 
> O.K., then let's ask him to change the name and get this thing on the
> LDP site and mirrors.

I'd rather not change the updated HOWTO's name simply because it is the
one more relevant, both now and in the future, and the older out-of-date
one should rename to reflect it's content with a link included (best case,
in both to the other) to reflect the relationship.

> > > I'd really like to be able to post this as a replacement for the old
> > > software RAID howto
> > 
> > Please don't.

I'd have to agree... keeping both around (at least in an interim
period) definitely makes sense, although I feel it's important that
their co-existance make clear the relationship they have with the code
base, and that the newer HOWTO get the more "official" recognition
as it is the HOWTO of the present and future, with the outdated version
being maintained 

> > Here's what Jakob wrote after posting to ldp-submit:
> > 
> > > A likely thing to happen would be that I put in a reference to his
> > > HOWTO in mine, perhaps re-named my HOWTO to emphasize that it's for
> > > the experimental RAID-patches only, and then re-submit it to you
> > > guys.

I hate this because calling it experimental at this point is a total
misnomer.  It's being used in production systems in tons of locations and
I have been using it since 2.1.90.  Far too many things are considered
"production" that don't have nearly that extent of testing. 

With distributions (and Alan already stating he'd like to see RAID 0.90
merged before 2.4 is released) moving to this RAID as their production
base for kernels, it is time to recognize that the former RAID is a dead,
unmaintained, outdated code base and any official recognition that it is
the primary software raid implementation under Linux does Linux, Ingo,
and all of us a disservice of the highest magnitude.

> At this point, I just want to make the documentation more easily
> available, and I don't really care how it gets done.

I would generally agree, but I'd like to make sure it's understood
(by ldp-* and even linux-raid) that 0.4x RAID shouldn't be viewed
as the "production" RAID anymore than kernel 1.2.x

James
-- 
Miscellaneous Engineer --- IBM Netfinity Performance Development


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