Re: [patch] delayed disk block allocation

[Etienne Lorrain]

> With "allocate on flush", (aka delayed allocation), file data is
> assigned a disk mapping when the data is being written out, rather than
> at write(2) time.  This has the following advantages:

  I do agree that this is a better solution than current one,
 but (even if I did not had time to test the patch), I have
 a question: How about bootloaders?

 IHMO all current bootloaders need to write to disk a "chain" of sector
 to load for their own initialisation, i.e. loading the remainning
 part of code stored on a file in one filesystem from the 512 bytes
 bootcode. This "chain" of sector can only be known once the file
 has been allocated to disk - and it has to be written on the same file,
 at its allocated space.

  So can you upgrade LILO or GRUB with your patch installed?
  It is not a so big problem (the solution being to install the
 bootloader on an unmounted filesystem with tools like e2fsprogs),
 but it seems incompatible with the current executables.

  Comment?
  Etienne.

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