[Gnu-arch-users] Re: advanced usage advice: the prism technique

[Miles Bader]

Andrea Arcangeli <address@hidden> writes:
> yes. That's exactly what I'm already doing by hand with normal patches
> so it's very clear how it works ;)

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I really like arch -- it's like the good
old (and rather nice) cp-al/patch method except that arch keeps track of
most of the annoying details for you!

> So now the only thing I care for efficient operation is that I can cache
> the unpacked tree in unpacked form (and I believe it's already the
> case), and that every new tree I checkout with 'get' gets forked sharing
> the inode with an _hardlink_.

I also really want this!

tla doesn't use hardlinks for source trees now, for obvious reasons --
you can't rely on every tool the user uses to change his source tree to
snap hardlinks before modifying files.

However, I think there should be a (user) option to use hardlinks
instead of copying for all tree-copying in tla; it of course should
default to `off', and by setting it to `on' the user is saying he
promises to use only safe tools, and is prepared to deal with the
consequences of not doing so.

`safe tools' includes at least emacs and patch, which I use for
99% of all modifications -- and anyway, like you, I use `cp -al' trees
for the kernel already, with no problems whatsoever.

-Miles
-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.  At night the ice weasels come.  --Nietzsche