On Wed, 2005-12-28 at 12:34 -0600, John Pierce wrote:
<<I wasn't saying that. But writing to the files *during installation* might result in fragmentation.>>
Just my two cents, if you install to a freshly formatted partition and the install has to write 20,000 files during package installation I cannot see the fs code scattering the files all of creation.
For example, when the mozilla package is installed I cannot see the mozilla binary being written to random sectors of the disc, I see the binary being written sequentially from start to finish.
Would this be a correct assumption?
Exactly, and IIRC the filesystem knows that if it needs X amount of space for a file, then Y number of inodes are marked for use for that file at the beginning. Thus space allocated is as contiguous as is efficient for read/write on the disk.
In general, the only fragmentation that occurs is when files are dynamically growing with use, such as log files and the like. I (as others also have noted) have seen systems that have been in use for years and only had a minimal fragmentation. Generally that remains in the low single digit range.
John
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