KHTML vs. Gecko vs. Trident vs. Presto: Behind the Browser
,----[ Quote ]
| "Why do we want more than one layout engine? It helps to spur innovation and
| means that if a flaw occurs it won't necessarily be in every browser at once.
| Having some different implementations of anything is a good thing," Gene
| Spafford, computer science professor at Purdue University, told LinuxInsider.
`----
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/59309.html
Another new case of point:
30 days with JFS
,----[ Quote ]
| The Journaled File System (JFS) is a little-known filesystem open sourced by
| IBM in 1999 and available in the Linux kernel sources since 2002. It
| originated inside IBM as the standard filesystem on the AIX line of Unix
| servers, and was later ported to OS/2. Despite its pedigree, JFS has not
| received the publicity or widespread usage of Linux filesystems like ext2/3
| and ReiserFS. To learn more about JFS, I installed it as my root filesystem.
| I found it to be a worthy alternative to the bigger names.
|
| [...]
|
| The main design goal of JFS was to provide fast crash recovery for large
| filesystems, avoiding the long filesystem check (fsck) times of older Unix
| filesystems. That was also the primary goal of filesystems like ext3 and
| ReiserFS. Unlike ext3, journaling was not an add-on to JFS, but baked into
| the design from the start. For high-performance applications, the JFS
| transaction log file can be created on an external volume if one is specified
| when the filesystem is first created.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/119025
Related:
Philosophy of Non-Competition
,----[ Quote ]
| People periodically ask me about competition in the open source
| community, especially competition between various languages.
|
| One thing Microsoft seems to have figured out is that developers
| want multiple languages to choose from and will always want
| multiple languages to choose from. Diversity is an advantage,
| not a disadvantage. Ruby, for example, benefits from Perl, PHP,
| and Python's success, just like they benefit from Ruby's success.
| Java would likely never have been released as open source if it
| weren't for the success of the other languages. Having multiple
| successful open source languages each used by multiple successful
| projects makes it that much easier for companies to consider open
| source alternatives. The more the merrier.
`----
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/philosophy_of_n.html
A survey of Linux file managers
,----[ Quote ]
| Linux file manager ontogeny encapsulates the history of GNU/Linux.
| File managers began as command-line and generic graphical tools and
| progressed to desktop-specific ones, gaining sophistication along
| the way, with mouse controls, for example, replacing buttons.
| Today, the more than a dozen options highlighted here will suit
| users with widely varied interests.
`----
http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1957208
Delve deep into drives
,----[ Quote ]
| Prabhakaran then goes on tracking bugs in all UNIX drivers, describing
| inconsistencies and danger points, tracing the outline of a tougher file
| system and then describing how to create an evolved file system that would
| unite the advantages of most current file systems and overcome most of their
| shortcomings. At the same time, he tries to describe how moving critical
| logical pieces from the driver to the kernel (and therefore sharing this code
| from one file system driver to the other) may make development easier and
| faster while at the same time strengthening existing FS.
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/delve_deep_into_drives
ZFS, XFS, EXT4 Filesystems Compared
,----[ Quote ]
| EXT4 is fast for metadata operations, tar, untar, cpio, and postmark. EXT4 is
| much faster than the others under FFSB. EXT4 with hardware RAID and external
| journal device is ludicrously fast. EXT4 seems to have a bad interaction with
| software RAID, probably because mkfs fails to query the RAID layout when
| setting the filesystem parameters.
|
| ZFS has excellent performance on metadata tests. ZFS has very bad sequential
| transfer with hardware RAID and appalling sequential transfer with software
| RAID. ZFS can copy the linux kernel source code in only 3 seconds! ZFS has
| equal latency for read and write requests under mixed loads, which is good.
|
| XFS has good sequential transfer under Bonnie++. Oddly XFS has better
| sequential reads when using an external journal, which makes little sense. Is
| noatime broken on XFS? XFS is very slow on all the metadata tests. XFS takes
| the RAID layout into consideration and it performs well on randomio with
| hardware or software RAID.
`----
http://tastic.brillig.org/%7Ejwb/zfs-xfs-ext4.html
OpenSolaris ZFS vs. Linux ext3 RAID5
,----[ Quote ]
| Few overarching conclusions can be drawn from the limited results of this
| study. Certainly, there are situations in which the Solaris/RAID-Z
| configuration appears to outperform the Ubuntu/RAID-5 configuration. Many
| questions remain regarding the large discrepancy in CPU usage for small-file
| operations. Likewise, the Ubuntu/RAID-5 configuration appears to perform
| slightly better in certain situations, though not overwhelmingly so. At best,
| under these default configurations, one can say that overall the Solaris
| configuration performs no worse, and indicates that it might perform better
| under live operating conditions. The latter, though, is largely speculation.
`----
http://www.prestonlee.com/archives/121
Why so many filesystems for Linux? What's the difference?
,----[ Quote ]
| * EXT3
|
| * Most popular Linux file system, limited scalability in size and
| number of files
| * Journaled
| * POSIX extended access control
|
| EXT3
| file system is a journaled file system that has the greatest use in
| Linux today. It is the "Linux" File system. It is quite robust and
| quick, although it does not scale well to large volumes nor a great
| number of files. Recently a scalability feature was added called
| htrees, which significantly improved EXT3's scalability.
|
|
| [...]
|
| * FAT32
|
| * Most limited file system, but most ubiquitous
| * Not Journaled
| * No access controls
|
| FAT32
| is the crudest of the file systems listed. Its popularity is with its
| widespread use and popularity in the Windows desktop world and that it
| has made its way into being the file system in flash RAM devices
| (digital cameras, USB memory sticks, etc.). It has no built in security
| access control, so is small and works well in these portable and
| embedded applications. It scales the least of the file systems listed.
| Most systems have FAT32 compatibility support due to its ubiquity.
`----
http://kevin.hatfieldfamilysite.com/?p=104
|
|