linkhard option disappeared again

[Andreas Kotes]

Hello,

Version 1.50-PR2_4 removes --linkhard again, while it was (still) present in 1.50-PR2_3.

While there may be various reasons to remove it there are most likely plenty of users quite happily using the option as-is, thus willing and wanting to keep it.

Ubuntu should keep this option.

[Julian Taylor (jtaylor)]

it was disabled because it causes dataloss, see
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=677419

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Adam Porter (alphapapa)]

It could cause dataloss across filesystems. The reporter in question used it across chroots and symlinks and filesystems and it caused problems with /lib on his main fs. For an average use case, like deduplicating photos or music on a single filesystem, this is not an issue, and hardlinks are very desirable.

A newer hardlinks patch set was posted at <http://code.google.com/p/fdupes/issues/detail?id=8#c5>, but it has sat there for almost two years. It'd be very nice to have this feature back.

There's another Debian bug about this feature's being re-added: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=284274