Toby Corkindale wrote:
On 11/04/12 11:38, Tim Connors wrote:
On Wed, 11 Apr 2012, James Harper wrote:
The problem with omitting the fsync in the case of an application is that you are violating your contract with the user. If I save a document then when the application says that the save is complete my document had damn well better be on my memory stick.
That is why there is a manual umount, instead of just "unplug and hope". It is not the application's responsibility to attempt to ensure bits hit non- volatile storage.
Users that expect to be able to just unplug a stick and walk away at any time DESERVE to have that expectation violated.
Windows users have that expectation and have that expectation met. When Windows tells me my copy is done, my copy is done and I can yank the memory stick. Yanking it in the middle of the copy will obviously cause a problem but that's not what we're talking about here.
As far as I'm aware, Windows turns off all write caching on all removalable media to achieve this. It doesn't do the equivalent for internal disks, so you end up with interesting corruption when power fails.
So do user-friendly distributions of Linux.
FSVO user-friendly = idiot / Windows refugee friendly.
With attitudes like that, the lack of Linux desktop market penetration continues to not surprise me. The average computer user doesn't care about your ideals of fsync and unmounting disks before removing them. They just want something that works. Calling them idiots says more about you than it does about them. James