[Beowulf] Sidebar: Vista Rant

[Chris Samuel]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Geoff Galitz wrote:

[about reasons for MacOSX]
> It's not the desktop, IMO.  It is the entire software stack.  From the
> kernel up though the application layer with a predictable hardware
> and  firmware layer underneath. 

I know the MySQL folks found from bitter experience that MacOSX can be just as 
annoyingly painful in its behaviour as other platforms..

This is from the MySQL 4.1.9 release notes relating to InnoDB (where they need 
some way of making sure data hits disk for ACID compliance):

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?3,11554,11554

InnoDB: When MySQL/InnoDB is compiled on Mac OS X 10.2 or earlier, detect the 
operating system version at run time and use the fcntl() file flush method on 
Mac OS X versions 10.3 and later. In Mac OS X, fsync() does not flush the 
write cache in the disk drive, but the special fcntl() does; however, the 
flush request is ignored by some external devices. Failure to flush the 
buffers may cause severe database corruption at power outages.

-- 
Christopher Samuel - (03) 9925 4751 - Systems Manager
 The Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing
 P.O. Box 201, Carlton South, VIC 3053, Australia
VPAC is a not-for-profit Registered Research Agency
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