Handbook obsolescence scan: "The vinum Volume Manager"

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2013, Frank Leonhardt wrote:

> On 25/06/2013 16:43, Warren Block wrote:
>> Next on the list of potentially outdated things in the Handbook: "The vinum 
>> Volume Manager", a whole chapter on vinum. Actually, it is really now about 
>> gvinum.
>> 
>> Are there any situations where new users should be advised to use gvinum 
>> rather than ZFS or gconcat/gstripe/gmirror?
>> 
>> What reasons are there for this chapter to remain in the Handbook given the 
>> newer, simpler alternatives?
>> 
>> If the information should remain, why should it be separate from the GEOM 
>> chapter?
>
> I remember reading this and the gmirror stuff at the same time and wondering 
> what it was all about. Whilst I'm generally not in favour of chucking stuff 
> out of a manual if it exists on the ground, at the very least this could do 
> with a sanity warning. At the time I had no way of knowing whether one method 
> or the other was deprecated. I suppose I made a lucky guess.

That is exactly the problem with old information.  gvinum still works, 
but there is little reason to recommend it over the newer solutions.

Rather than just removing this chapter, it could be converted to a 
separate article, along with an added introduction about when it was 
removed from the Handbook and why.