Re: Will Gnome _EVER_ be stable?

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Wed, 2002-03-13 at 20:29, stan wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 07:27:33PM -0500, Sean Middleditch wrote:

> > I know mine (Debian Woody, latest GNOME 1.4 packages) has never "self
> > destructed."  From what people are saying, it only happens when your
> > partition is full?  That might explain why mine hasn't ever - last runaway
> > process I had only managed to fillup half the disk (rather big disk) before
> > I noticed, killed it off, and deleted the file it filled up.
> 
> Well, considering I have over 30G free on that partition, I'd say that's not the cause for
> mine, self destrucing.

Ah, OK then.  "My bad."

> 
> > 
> > Assuming that the problem is only the disk filling up, what solution could
> > there be?  There is no way to save settings if there is no disk space, end
> > of story.  Perhaps there should be more safe guards against deleting
> > settings if new data can't be stored?  I.e., write the new, temporary
> > settings file, then "rename" it to the real config file's name?
> > 
> > Or do I have no idea what I'm talking about in regards to settings right
> > now?  ~,^
> > 
> 
> Well, sonce that's not the problem here, this is not a sollution, for me.
> However, the general case solutin to the question you pose, goes like this.
> 
> 1. Create backup copy of config to be changed.
> 2. Verify that you have an _exact_ copy.
> 3. Edit original.
> 4. If _any_ problem occurs, renmae copy to orignal name.
>    Note that this is a _rename_ which will not require _any_ additional space,
>    since you will only be modifying directory structure entires.

Um, that's rather convoluted, and error-prone.  The solution I mentioned
is the exact same one used, for example, when modifying the /etc/passwd
file with vipasswd (or any other such program).  It ensures that (at
least) no errors occur during the writing of the new passwd file, and
that there is always a valid copy (either the old or the new) in place
at /etc/passwd, at all times (since the rename is atomic).

Of course, as you said, that won't fix whatever causes your GNOME config
file mishaps, but it might help those with disk-space errors (especially
when .gnome-errors decides to fill up your disk space because some core
GNOME component goes crazy ;-)

Sean Etc.

> 
> 
> -- 
> "They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve
> neither liberty nor safety."
> 						-- Benjamin Franklin
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