5 ms·

Will there be a time when ZFS is the defacto standard on Linux or is it only suited to specific use cases?

pmarreck 9y ago
I too would like to know the answer to this. I think ZFS for a long time (if not still) has some... patent issues associated with it which could be problematic in an open-source context. I think BTRFS was (or is still) trying to fill this niche (and is open-source), but the perception is that it is not 100% reliable, and unfortunately, a first-class filesystem kind of has to be. Here's a guide on how to use ZFS as the root filesystem on Ubuntu: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.10-Root-on-ZFS https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.10-Root-on-...
- earenndil 9y ago
  I don't think ZFS has patent issues, I think the issue is that it has a BSD-like license, and it's too free for the linux people. BTRFS just isn't good enough. I'm waiting for bcachefs.
  - saurik 9y ago
    I don't know where you got that impression, but it is not at all accurate: the issue is that ZFS is licensed under the CDDLv1, which some key players (but clearly not all; it is not even clear if it is a majority, but I don't know if the people claiming it isn't are motivated to do so) believe to be incompatible with the GPLv2. https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-linux/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-lin... vs. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/
- blackflame7000 9y ago
  I personally dont think it will because most systems still only have one main drive and ZFS really shines best with multiple disks. I think something more like Apples new file system is more likely but im basing this off of gut alone
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    The more drives the better, obviously, but ZFS has advantages even for single-disk pools (e.g. checksumming).
    - blackflame7000 9y ago
      What good is checksumming with no parity? You’re just losing capacity for no reason since drives already have bad sector protection
- viraptor 9y ago
  Other two to watch out for are Hammer2 (https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob_plain/HEA...) and bcachefs (http://bcachefs.org/ http://bcachefs.org/), but both will take a while before being available in a standard distro. Hammer is only in bsd for now, so would need a big port. bcachefs is making slow progress in linux - maybe in a year or two.
yourapostasy 9y ago
I think that as long as ZFS is licensed under CDDL [1], it will never be part of the Linux kernel proper. However, I'm not aware of any factor that prevents a distribution from selecting ZFS as the default filesystem [2]. Perhaps it forces forking rescue disks onto a different, simpler filesystem type, which would add work for the distributions, but I can't think of a good list of drawbacks off the top of my head. It would be awesome if someone from one of the big distributions chimed in why ZFS is passed over, from their perspective, and perhaps the ZoL project might be able to help address their concerns. [1] https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing [2] http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-has-license-problems http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-h...
- rincebrain 9y ago
  Yeah, Linux is never going to merge something CDDL into the mainline short of people achieving porcine aviation. Among other things, booting from ZFS on Linux can still be an experience with rough edges - I think one distro makes it easy to do from the installer (Slackware?), but otherwise you get to follow instructions which are opaque to someone not already familiar with running Linux, and debugging can be weird even if you are (the most common thing I've seen is the initramfs failing to import the pool and dropping to a rescue prompt, then succeeding at importing there - for a variety of reasons, usually not "the disks weren't spun up yet when it tried importing" any more). There's also the caveat that frequently ZFS gains feature flag support faster than GRUB2 gets updated to boot from those features, particularly since you can't just shove CDDL code into GRUB2, so you get to reimplement the wheel, and zpool upgrade/zpool set doesn't currently warn you that you're gonna make your pool unbootable if you turn on those features. I'm not a distro maintainer or anything of the sort, but between the above rough edges and concerns about redistributability of CDDL modules compiled against the Linux kernel and patents, I'm not surprised that people shy away from it unless $BIG_CUSTOMER throws a lot of money at them to make it a first-class citizen. (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...)
  - Spivak 9y ago
Spivak 9y ago
I don't think so, xfs is looking pretty good as a general purpose alternative to ext4 and there's no real reason to throw your average user on something more complicated.

I too would like to know the answer to this. I think ZFS for a long time (if not still) has some... patent issues associated with it which could be problematic in an open-source context. I think BTRFS was (or is still) trying to fill this niche (and is open-source), but the perception is that it is not 100% reliable, and unfortunately, a first-class filesystem kind of has to be. Here's a guide on how to use ZFS as the root filesystem on Ubuntu: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.10-Root-on-ZFS https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.10-Root-on-...

earenndil 9y ago
I don't think ZFS has patent issues, I think the issue is that it has a BSD-like license, and it's too free for the linux people. BTRFS just isn't good enough. I'm waiting for bcachefs.
- saurik 9y ago
  I don't know where you got that impression, but it is not at all accurate: the issue is that ZFS is licensed under the CDDLv1, which some key players (but clearly not all; it is not even clear if it is a majority, but I don't know if the people claiming it isn't are motivated to do so) believe to be incompatible with the GPLv2. https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-linux/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/18/zfs-licensing-and-lin... vs. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/
blackflame7000 9y ago
I personally dont think it will because most systems still only have one main drive and ZFS really shines best with multiple disks. I think something more like Apples new file system is more likely but im basing this off of gut alone
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  The more drives the better, obviously, but ZFS has advantages even for single-disk pools (e.g. checksumming).
  - blackflame7000 9y ago
    What good is checksumming with no parity? You’re just losing capacity for no reason since drives already have bad sector protection
viraptor 9y ago
Other two to watch out for are Hammer2 (https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob_plain/HEA...) and bcachefs (http://bcachefs.org/ http://bcachefs.org/), but both will take a while before being available in a standard distro. Hammer is only in bsd for now, so would need a big port. bcachefs is making slow progress in linux - maybe in a year or two.

yourapostasy 9y ago

I think that as long as ZFS is licensed under CDDL [1], it will never be part of the Linux kernel proper. However, I'm not aware of any factor that prevents a distribution from selecting ZFS as the default filesystem [2]. Perhaps it forces forking rescue disks onto a different, simpler filesystem type, which would add work for the distributions, but I can't think of a good list of drawbacks off the top of my head. It would be awesome if someone from one of the big distributions chimed in why ZFS is passed over, from their perspective, and perhaps the ZoL project might be able to help address their concerns. [1] https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing [2] http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-has-license-problems http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-h...

rincebrain 9y ago
Yeah, Linux is never going to merge something CDDL into the mainline short of people achieving porcine aviation. Among other things, booting from ZFS on Linux can still be an experience with rough edges - I think one distro makes it easy to do from the installer (Slackware?), but otherwise you get to follow instructions which are opaque to someone not already familiar with running Linux, and debugging can be weird even if you are (the most common thing I've seen is the initramfs failing to import the pool and dropping to a rescue prompt, then succeeding at importing there - for a variety of reasons, usually not "the disks weren't spun up yet when it tried importing" any more). There's also the caveat that frequently ZFS gains feature flag support faster than GRUB2 gets updated to boot from those features, particularly since you can't just shove CDDL code into GRUB2, so you get to reimplement the wheel, and zpool upgrade/zpool set doesn't currently warn you that you're gonna make your pool unbootable if you turn on those features. I'm not a distro maintainer or anything of the sort, but between the above rough edges and concerns about redistributability of CDDL modules compiled against the Linux kernel and patents, I'm not surprised that people shy away from it unless $BIG_CUSTOMER throws a lot of money at them to make it a first-class citizen. (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...)
- Spivak 9y ago

Spivak 9y ago

I don't think so, xfs is looking pretty good as a general purpose alternative to ext4 and there's no real reason to throw your average user on something more complicated.