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 > > -- > Registered Linux User 263680, get counted at > http://counter.li.org >
