91 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
91 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<HTML>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9">
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<TITLE>UMSDOS HOW-TO: UMSDOS-WHY-TO</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO-8.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO.html#toc9" REL=contents>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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Next
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<A HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO-8.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO.html#toc9">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s9">9. UMSDOS-WHY-TO</A></H2>
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<P>Explaining how to operate or install a <EM>Umsdos</EM> system
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is not enough. Most people are seeking some advises about
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using <EM>Umsdos</EM> or not.
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<P>
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss9.1">9.1 The goal of <EM>Umsdos</EM></A>
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</H2>
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<P>The goal of <EM>Umsdos</EM> was to ease the installation of
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<EM>Linux</EM>. An other goal was to ease its UN-installation.
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The idea here was to promote the spreading of <EM>Linux</EM>.
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Installing a new OS on a system is always troublesome. <EM>OS/2</EM>
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for one will happily pollute your <CODE>C:</CODE> root with a bunch of
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new directories. If you are clever like me, it will also erase
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your config.sys and autoexec.bat files :-(
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<P>The pseudo-root feature of <EM>Umsdos</EM> avoid this unwanted
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invasion. <EM>Linux</EM> can be UN-install without side effect.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss9.2">9.2 Who needs it</A>
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</H2>
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<P>If you have a small hard drive, <EM>Umsdos</EM> will allow you
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to share disk space between <EM>DOS</EM> and <EM>Linux</EM>. A disk
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below 300 megs is in my opinion a small disk. This opinion
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is based on the size of the different package available today.
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One popular word processor may eat as much as 70 megabytes
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if you select all features.
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<P>If you have a larger drive, you may consider having a dedicated
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<EM>Linux</EM> partition running the <EM>Ext2</EM> file-system. <EM>Ext2</EM>
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use a smaller cluster size that <EM>DOS</EM> (1k in fact) so installing
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many small files will eat less space than in a <EM>Umsdos</EM>
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partition.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss9.3">9.3 Performance issue</A>
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</H2>
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<P>The following point apply to <EM>Umsdos</EM> compared with <EM>Ext2</EM>.
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<P>
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<UL>
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<LI>Directory management is faster on <EM>Ext2</EM>. This come from
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the overhead of the double directory structure of
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<EM>Umsdos</EM>.</LI>
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<LI>File access (reading and writing) is probably faster on
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<EM>Umsdos</EM> than <EM>Ext2</EM>. This come from the simplicity
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of the <EM>FAT</EM> file-system used by <EM>DOS</EM>.
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Beware that this simplicity come with a cost:
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<UL>
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<LI>A maximum of around 65,000 files or clusters
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per partitions. This also means that a 500
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megabytes partition will use cluster 16k large.
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In other word, a file containing a single byte
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will use 16k of disk storage.</LI>
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<LI>Everything is controlled by the <CODE>FAT</CODE> located
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at the beginning of the hard drive. The <EM>DOS</EM>
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file-system is probably more fragile because of this.</LI>
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<LI>No provision to avoid fragmentation of files. A
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<EM>Umsdos</EM> system will generally be used as
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a single user workstation. In this case, this does
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not matter much. As a multi-user engine, files
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will get spread-ed all around the drive, lowering
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file access performance.</LI>
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</UL>
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</LI>
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<LI>Symbolic links are stored in normal file. If you intend
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to have a lot of them, you will find that <EM>Umsdos</EM>
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use quite a lot of disk space compared to <EM>Ext2</EM>.</LI>
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</UL>
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<HR>
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Next
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<A HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO-8.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="UMSDOS-HOWTO.html#toc9">Contents</A>
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</HTML>
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