PFS3AIO v3.1 Final

[Toni Wilen]

Negative buffers would be really bad idea, most likely it would break (at least cause bad display output) any program that change or display buffer value.. Including addbuffers.

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by spudje

E-Penguin, I think you will be very dissapointed then to know, that the majority of people in the world using computers cannot...

I am appalled.

+1 for the automatic configuration based on ram then.

Although... At what point does it make the decision? If you boot without fast but then AddMem some in, what should it do? The file system is presumably loaded by that point.

[Sinphaltimus]

Why not just set it and forget it at 30 and edit the .readme with any important details?

[malko]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Why would you want (special case) "slow/small memory" behavior when you more than enough RAM?[...]

In my opinion it's better to leave user input unchanged.
I prefer such things to be well described in the documentation for the user to do the changes himself if needed instead of any automatic changes as it is impossible to know in advance if the setting was not set intentionally.
(even if I know that exist users who don't read the manual - but at the end it's not the coder's fault if users don't read the manual.)

I just think about it now while writing :
- what about adding a check within pfsdoctor in order to inform about non-ideal parameters (only informing) ? Thus leaving the choice to the user to change the value or not.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

"Small" memory support probably gets included but I am still not sure how to choose between modes automatically. Available memory size? Less than 1M? Less than 2M?

I would say that a chip memory (0,5 - 2 MB) only system is positive low end. With some fast memory I would say it is still low end but you don't know how much memory is free for usage. E.g. on my OS3.1 install Avail says after boot that 10MB fast is in use out of 32MB. Do you know how many partitions are in use?

[kolla]

So who here, apart from Toni, knew already that default values of 30 buffers really means 150?

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by kolla

So who here, apart from Toni, knew already that default values of 30 buffers really means 150?

I did, it's been discussed several times in multiple threads. BUT - it should still be something that's included in the .readme file.

[malko]

Originally Posted by kolla

So who here, apart from Toni, knew already that default values of 30 buffers really means 150?

As far as I know, this information is only available in some threads here on EAB.
Even in the "readme.txt" that was included in the pfs3aio.lha on aminet this information is not mentioned (VER: pfs3_aio.handler 18.5 (14.5.2014)). So except for digging a bit...
Old PFS3_53 documentation mention a "sanity check" for a value between 70 and 600 (VER: Professional-File-System-II 18.5 PROFESSIONAL-VERSION (20.11.99) written by Michiel Pelt and copyright (c) 1999 GREat Effects Development). Personally I don't understand "sanity check" as an "automatic change".
Hope it helps .

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

[...] BUT - it should still be something that's included in the .readme file.

I second Sinphaltimus for an up-to-date documentation.
Toni, do you need some help ? I can dig EAB and propose you some documentation changes. Let me know

[Toni Wilen]

I probably already answered this: 30 -> 150 is not pfs3aio introduced feature and I don't do documentation.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by daxb

I would say that a chip memory (0,5 - 2 MB) only system is positive low end. With some fast memory I would say it is still low end but you don't know how much memory is free for usage. E.g. on my OS3.1 install Avail says after boot that 10MB fast is in use out of 32MB. Do you know how many partitions are in use?

I repeat: it is only meant for very small memory systems. It is not meant for normal use cases!

Like max 2M total and max 2 partitions, preferably 1. Unexpanded system or 1/0.5 trap door with built-in IDE or some IDE only adapter.

But it needs to be in normal mode when system has more RAM because these kinds of configurations are usually "read-only", move card to other system or PC, move data, then move card back and play whdload games. This is the target use case, nothing more.

At what point does it make the decision? If you boot without fast but then AddMem some in, what should it do? The file system is presumably loaded by that point.

When partition gets mounted. Use of addbuffers will change amount of used memory (but it can cause fragmentation so dynamic changes are not good idea) but not all "special" small allocations can be changed after initial allocations. It would make this feature too complex.

Addmem is not my problem.

(It is starting to sound this feature is not that useful and will be only used for wrong reasons)

[spudje]

For me as a simple end-user. Should I wait for a new update of PFS3AIO, or can I use the latest on aminet for setting up a new system?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by spudje

For me as a simple end-user. Should I wait for a new update of PFS3AIO, or can I use the latest on aminet for setting up a new system?

You can use latest aminet version. Only functional difference in test version is: softlinks work (I never tested and no one probably uses those normally).

[kolla]

Maybe change the name from pfs3aio to pfs3eab, lol

[Romanujan]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

softlinks work (I never tested and no one probably uses those normally)

Noone uses them because they are terribly broken - in countless of Amiga utilities. And emulators also. For example I have seen symlink to file being displayed as a directory in some utilities. Or FS-UAE not supporting symlinks in filesystem emulation.

Symlinks in Linux are nice. Symlinks in AmigaOS suck - mainly due to broken support. I use symlinks while emulating Amiga - but these are Linux-level symlinks, completely transparent to Amiga-side software...

[Locutus]

I think softlinks were used by some of the GeekGadgets distributions, i have some half failing memory of struggling with non working links on ixemul/GG/SFS in the early 2000's....

I'm pretty sure nobody notices as nowadays everyone is just happy if gcc/binutils/make runs :-)

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I probably already answered this: 30 -> 150 is not pfs3aio introduced feature and I don't do documentation.

I'm pretty sure you could find someone to write up the documentation if they had access to all the info they needed to do so. All you'd have to do is include it in the distributed lha.

[Jope]

A short readme would probably suffice, with the differences to the original outlined. The PFS3 documentation is already rather comprehensive.

As Toni said, he doesn't do documentation. Anyone is free to step up and read through any relevant forum threads, whip something together and offer it to Toni.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Jope

[...] Anyone is free to step up and read through any relevant forum threads, whip something together and offer it to Toni.

Already proposed. See second part of post #268
If you are patient, will do it (other stuff to finish first - so no release date so far )
Or anybody in a hurry is free to begin today

[Jope]

What's the hurry in an already complete world, as we say around these parts.

[kolla]

I use softlinks all the time, and it was a glorious day when ThoR fixed it for ram-handler, which allowed RAM:Disk.info to be a softlink to ENVARC:Sys/def_RAM.info so that saving icon position etc was saved to disk. OS4.1FE now uses this as the official method too.