Re: IO stats in /proc/partitions

From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To: dwguest@win.tue.nl (Guest section DW)
Cc: davidsen@tmr.com (Bill Davidsen),
	alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox),
	miquels@cistron.nl (Miquel van Smoorenburg),
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: IO stats in /proc/partitions
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:11:45 +0100 (BST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <E17A9QX-0007ky-00@the-village.bc.nu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20020521003604.GA400@win.tue.nl> from "Guest section DW" at May 21, 2002 02:36:04 AM

> >   Changes belong in 2.5, /proc/partitions is the wrong place, but it's
> > also the place the tools expect. I hope that's not going to change in the
> > stable kernel.
> 
> You misunderstand.
> Everybody agrees that /proc/partitions is the wrong place.
> Up to now these statistics have not been part of any official
> kernel, stable or not.

The 2.4 stable kernel is the minority product here 8)

> However, someone wanted to introduce them for the first time
> in 2.4.19 and put them in /proc/partitions. That is a really bad idea,
> especially when they will be somewhere else in 2.5.

I agree. Its relatively easy for vendors to keep the stats in /proc/partitions
for 2.4.x (certainly adding other stuff instead to proc/partitions for 2.4
is bad). It is better that people are encouraged to use a new 2.5 compatible
interface over time and for later 2.4.x that vendors ship something with
both.

Alan