[wplug] linux system administration

[Tom Rhodes]

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:06:18 -0400
Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:

> Dileep Vangasseri <dil5516 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > In Windows we do disk clean up or defragmentation once
> > in  a while to make the system clean. Is there
> > anything that we have to do regularly for running a
> > linux system properly?
> 
> No.
> 
> It's always funny to me when this question comes up, for a number reasons:
> 1) It's one of the first questions I asked when I started using POSIX systems
>    again around 1998.
> 2) It's embarrassing to me to imagine that Microsoft can't create a filesystem
>    that doesn't need defragmenting, when the Unixes have had such a filesystem
>    since the late 70s.
> 3) It's got to be in a bazillion FAQs and mailing list archives across the
>    Internet, yet it still gets asked on some mailing list every other month
>    or so.  It seems to be that people freak out if they can't defrag their
>    filesytems every so often.  I really don't get it.
> 4) Despite the fact that it's totally unnecessary, there actually _are_
>    programs available that attempt to defrag ext2!  This just goes to prove
>    that there are companies out there that will sell you worthless crap.

Calm down Bill, it's not the companies selling worthless crap
your upset about, it's the fact I never got a chance to call you
the other night.  Lemmie iterate the excuse:

Go home and boot up the Sun; broken install (stupid NetBSD and how
they handled that video card);
Reload Solaris 9 with minimal install and default user packages;
No useradd utility;
Call Glen at Sun engineering, talk, explain, throw fit, hang up;
Use the deprecated admintool since useradd doesn't exist (yet
logins does?);
Start download of GCC while I move the SGI machines around my
office;
Get drunk pass out.

Those new Dairy Queen frozen 'latte' drinks suck; they're mocha
is too sweet.

The 'Defragmentation tool' is a bug passed off as a feature.

MSDOSFS in FreeBSD will almost never be (current) POSIX compliant
even without the 'defrag' feature.

Tom wants beer ...

-- 
Tom Rhodes