First, let me say that I'm impressed with all the good work that you
are doing. However, there are some parts where Linux is not
"at the same level" as the rest of the kernel (and it's competitors).
Althrough it's history Linux has been known for it's poor NFS support.
Many of us has had hopes that this would be fixed in 2.2, but no. Now
our hopes are set for 2.4, but the recent talk about a feature-freeze
and hurrying a new kernel out have started a rumour that nfs in 2.4
will remain unchanged.
Today, Linux is excellent for anything that doesn't require nfs. That
is www-servers, news-servers, samba-servers and all sorts of
standalone-machines. You can use nfs, but only between Linux-machines
if you don't want to trigger obscure bugs or have bad performance.
Lots of environments rely on nfs for file-sharing, and today you often
have to fight when you're going to use Linux as an nfs-client
(especially with 2.2 which seems to have triggered various bugs in
nfs-servers). You can almost forget to use Linux as an nfs-server for
non-Linux machines though.
I, and many many others, believe that if Linux are going to get
accepted (and used) in such environments then it has to have a working
nfs-support, both client and server. If the feature-freeze means no
working nfs3 I hardly recommend you all to reconsider this. A (IMHO)
working solution would be to do the feature-freeze, but push the
development of the nfs-part into working state and into the kernel.
It would definately be a win for Linux, since it's one of the weak
points in the Linux-kernel (the weakest IMO). I could probably come up
with many more reasons, but the best I can think of is that it would
lead to far less frustrated sysadmins :-)
If there is a need to test nfs-interoperability with AIX, Irix or
Solaris feel free to drop me an email. Linux can talk to them, but
Linux seems to trigger various bugs in AIX (and reportedly Irix, but
we're not using any Irix nfs-server at the moment).
If you are replying to this mail, please CC me since I'm not a
subscriber of linux-kernel.
/Nikke - SysAdmin at the Academic Computer Club, Umeå University, Sweden
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Niklas Edmundsson, Admin @ {acc,hpc2n,ing}.umu.se | nikke@ing.umu.se
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bluff means never having to sway your story.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/