Subject: Re: Hard links -> symlink
To: Ted Lemon <mellon@fugue.com>
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 12/17/1995 17:03:56
> I don't care about AFS, and I don't spread my installs across
> multiple disks because that would be impossible to maintain, so I
> would never see the problems you're describing, but I would see the
> performance hit from using symlinks on frequently-accessed files.

I'd like to question the rationale, "I don't spread my installs across
multiple disks because that would be impossible to maintain."  I don't
split my installs across multiple disks either, but the real question
is, "is it reasonable for NetBSD to break if any two directories with
links between them are on different partitions?"

I can easily cause cgd's i386 install script to break by asking it to
create a /usr/sbin partition, for instance.  You or I may not consider
this a very good way to separate out an installation, but is it
acceptable that this should fail?

> If you really want to avoid trouble with links, you shouldn't use
> them at all, IMHO - just install two copies of the file.

If you and cgd honestly think this is a better answer, I can cause
LINKS to do this instead, but I get the feeling it's a red herring.