Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) Now GPL

melios writes "In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has released its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community. Source code, design documentation, and test suites for AdvFS are available on SourceForge."

Sheesh...

[adolf]

Allow me to be the first to say: It's about fucking time.

Spiritual ancestor of ZFS

[mihalis]

I just had a quick glance through the wikipedia page on this filesystem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdvFS [wikipedia.org]
and it seems to share a surprising number of features with ZFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS [wikipedia.org]
For example, pools, snapshots etc.

Cool, license squabbling aside I look forward to the massively fragmented UNIX codebase slowly coalescing in this area.

Re:I think I will wait...

[Anita Coney]

How come I never have any mod points when someone says something brilliantly funny?!

Re:AdvFS

[BrentH]

Thanks. Still I have one question: does it do background filechecks (against a built-in checksum) like ZFS does?

What's the obsession with filesystems?

[pschmied]

Certainly the Linux community doesn't really need to burn energy supporting a half dozen filesystems.

Talk to six linux admins and you'll get at least that many "every filesystem but the one I'm using sucks!" responses.

I'd gladly stand up for a lack of choice on the filesystem front. Pick one, make sure it's absolutely tested, make sure it supports a nice range of features.

Integrating a filesystem into another OS is a decidedly non-trivial task unless you just want to read files.

Thanks, HP, but I don't really want your no-longer-commercially-viable undead zombieware.

Re:What's the obsession with filesystems?

[CastrTroy]

But then you end up with the windows situation, where they only support NTFS (or FAT32, but who uses that). I don't think that any 1 file system is optimal for all tasks that one would want to use a computer for. People use computers for many different things. It makes complete sense to have file systems that accommodate the needs of different people.

Re:A new open file system?

[east coast]

Around here it's hard to tell who's serious and who's not anymore. It's amazing some of the things that get asked around here seriously. Just look up the Ask Slashdot section and you'll see tons of it.

Re:A new open file system?

[fm6]

When somebody asks a question that could be answered by a very simple Google, they're either being funny or they're so terminally lazy it's silly to respond too them. And when the question is about a guy whose murder trial has been in the news (especially the nerdcentric news) for months, I think it's safe to assume that the questioner is not being lazy.

Re:What's the obsession with filesystems?

[buchner.johannes]

Exactly! They should just create a data structure and search algorithm with O(1) in all use cases.

Linux has that, it's called /dev/null

Interesting

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Everyone has been looking at ZFS to provide a whole lot of this same feature set, but the CDDL license has been a significant stumbling block. Releasing AdvFS as GPL could actually put it in the running for real world adoption and use on a large scale. I think Sun already considered this a battle won and may now have to rethink their strategy. If they released Sun as GPL in the next month, I'd be willing to bet AdvFS would probably be largely ignored and become a historical footnote. If Sun waits and lets it gain traction (as they tend to do) it could be they will find themselves with another cool technology they sat on too long and which has been replaced y the OSS community.

Re:What's the obsession with filesystems?

[CastrTroy]

Well, for Linux, I would say that you have Ext2, and Ext3, and that I guess Ext4, which will be the NewFS. If you aren't at all concerned with the differences, then just use EXT. I don't think a larger percentage of people run anything else. However, I think that having a system that assumes that there will be other file systems makes it a lot more flexible. Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to get good EXT2/3 support windows. It's specifically because it was written from the point of view, that nobody would ever want to use any file system, other than NTFS or FAT. So it's inherently hard to get any other file system working with it. If you work with the idea that some people may want other file systems, it doesn't end up as so much of a problem. I wouldn't want to run my servers using EXT3, but it sure would be nice to be able to mount my Ext file systems when I dual book into windows. I know it can be done, but all the solutions seem like big kludges, that only half work.

Sorry but Nemesis is the sucky one...

[Anonymous Coward]

...not Insurrection. It wasn't perfect or anything, but to say it sucks just goes too far.

Re:How many filesystems

[afidel]

What do you think actually powers many of those SAN/Hardware/NAS/NFS file servers, Linux of course. I really don't think the lack of file systems is holding Linux back, but having more of them that fit into more niches is sure to mean more adoption because Linux will be the hammer that fits the nail for those users.

Re:If only... What could have been w/o HP's NIH is

[turgid]

You're not a PHB are you? Let me explain it, DEC/HP/Compaq is a PHB company. When these decisions were taken, unix was legacy and Windows NT was the Way Forward. To hell with technical or business requirements. With enough spin and shiny marketing, all things are possible. That's why we're all running 32-bit Windows PCs and the entire world's servers are running an NT-derivative on itanic. Unix is dead. RISC is dead. x86 is 32-bit only.

Re:Sheesh...

[Winter Lightning]

In your face ZFS losers!!! The penguin is unstoppable. We have the best coders who can do stuff like this. M$ and $UN are more dead then B$D!!! lol

So why didn't the penguin coders do it? AdvFS was developed by Digital as piece of closed source; aren't you rewriting history to suggest that it came from the Linux community?

Declarations/health warnings:
  1) I work for Sun and I rather like ZFS :-)
  2) In a former life I also used AdvFS and thought
            it was a good filesystem; probably the best general
            purpose FS around until ZFS.
  3) Integrating AdvFS into Linux and exercising it for prime
            time won't be an overnight job; perhaps several years
            before it can be deemed trustworthy.

I currently use Tru64 in production at least..

[Bonzoli]

I currently use Tru64 in production at least for another month. One of the issues with this encapsulation type FS process is it sucks. If I had to try and figure out how to merge two File systems by some vote of talking heads, this would be the result. It has some strong and good things it does well, but the way Tru64 merged it's file systems together, makes the final product a huge pain to administer and fix. Learn what you can from the code, and make something better. Do not try and port this crap to something else as is, you wont be happy.

Why do you think HP bought again the newer Veritas File system and didn't use the already payed for version they picked up with Tru64?

It has some good things in it. Pick them out carefully and learn from them. Then think about what is needed to administer your File systems in real life, and implement it.

Re:What's the point?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The poster you are replying to:

... a person whose principles and strength of character are lacking.

You:

He's a pragmatist, not an idealist.

It apparently escaped you that these are pretty much one and the same thing.

An idealist, for example, is a politician who would try to stick to his beliefs even when sniper's bullets are whizzing next to his head. A "pragmatist" is a politician who will take all the lobbyist money he can get his paws on (after all this is the "reality" of politics, surely?), promise everyone "centrist compromises". "bridging the gap", "reaching across the isles" etc to get elected and then do everything that his most powerful and rich friends ever wanted.

In short "pragmatist" is the Polite Society's code word for "spineless, unprincipled opportunist".