Re: [Gaim-devel] lost config files

[Wesley M. <mo...@ch...>]

On Sun, 2 Apr 2006, Ethan Blanton wrote:

> This does not exactly follow.  We save it because something has
> changed.  If every application called fsync() every time something
> changed, you would not be pleased at all with your system performance.
>
> Mark is right that this is a problem with the instability of your
> system, and not with Gaim.  Yes, someone *does* need to test unstable
> device drivers -- but to test them on a system where you care about
> your data is not wise.  Note that, on an unstable system, even fsync
> cannot save you because most modern disk drives have quite large write
> caches, and fsync does not disable the drive cache.  In fact, I'm not
> even sure that a non-root user can force such a write, although it may
> be so.
>
> If Gaim is saving *spuriously*, we need to fix this.  If it is not
> (i.e., important changes are actually being made), I think our current
> behavior is a good compromise for getting changes on disk during
> non-pathological conditions without incurring lots of delays.  This is
> what disk buffers are _for_.  fsync() runs the very real possibility
> of incurring noticable UI delays (particularly over network
> filesystems), which we would like to avoid.

You guys do whatever you like with the suggestion. I'll be keeping a 
backup copy of my configuration files so I don't have to worry about it.


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