WineConf Agenda

[Andrew Tridgell]

Dimi,

 > >   - for mixed directories, Win32 names will appear lowercase to posix
 > >     programs, but will be case preserving to Wine/Samba. Wine/Samba
 > 
 > This is something I don't really like: to change the filename's case
 > behind user's back. From my POV, it's not acceptable. I know I'd be
 > pissed if that happened to me.

It only changes the name from the point of view of posix. The name is
completely preserved from the point of view of Wine/Samba. I can still
understand this annoying some people, but I don't think it would annoy
the majority of Samba users.

 > I think we'd be much better off if we relied on some kernel feature.
 > The current mechanism works just fine, if you want the same behaviour,
 > but faster, you need such and such in the kernel. It's a much simpler
 > (and cleaner) case to make then to change such fundamental behaviour.

yes, but you will run up against huge objections from the kernel
community. The key sticking point is that filenames can no longer be
treated as "bags-of-bytes". You have to start understanding character
sets in the kernel in a very fundamental way to implement case
insensitivity. I tried to argue that the kernel should start to
understand UTF-8 and was shot down with extreme prejudice. The kernel
guys know this means great pain for us, but they are unwilling to
budge.

It might be that NFSv4 will force this issue, but it might not. They
might end up with the same sort of solutions we implement now.

That is why I came up with my proposed solution. The speed of the
current "scan directory" system is just way too slow and doing it
"right" from our point of view (making the filesystem case
insensitive) appears not to be an option. My proposal is a attempt to
salvage something workable.

In Samba we would make this an option. It would be there to solve the
speed problem and if users don't like the consequences (like losing
the case preservation from the point of view of posix apps) then they
can disable it.

Cheers, Tridge