Norton Go Home! We don't want you!

[Kenneth Herron]

In article <466 at bria>:

>As I have previously stated, my beef with NU is that it
>"induces" the statfs() call to lie about the true number of free blocks
>on the machine.  Norton is saving all of these; now, my application comes
>along and asks how much disk there is.  The OS lies, saying there are 'x'
>free blocks, when there really is not.  I start creating files, and
>*whoom* run out of real disk space...

_NO_YOU DON'T_.  The whole purpose of this "lying" about free space is
that Norton will free the blocks on demand, so as far as a user can tell, 
the space was never in use to begin with.

Stated another way:  Norton's is using the free space on your hard disk
to save deleted files without making the space any less free; since it's 
in the kernal it can do that.  The blocks "used" by Norton's do not meet 
the classical definition of in-use, since they're instantly freed upon 
demand.

It think the basic question is:  "Do you trust Peter Norton with your
kernal?"  The same question can be asked about every third-party device
driver (including FAS, a public domain product yet!).  It's just that
Norton's is a somewhat more unusual kernal add-in than most, and, like
others have said, it has the stink of DOS about it.  I think I'm also
detecting a bit of power-user arrogance here, too...
-- 
Kenneth Herron                                            kherron at ms.uky.edu
University of Kentucky                                        (606) 257-2975
Department of Mathematics 
                                "Never trust gimmicky gadgets" -- the Doctor