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> I'd advise you to use PPA over repo though, as many key features are missing from the version on repos. I would advise using ZFS only with distros that come
by vetinari 4y ago
> I'd advise you to use PPA over repo though, as many key features are missing from the version on repos.
I would advise using ZFS only with distros that come with it (i.e. Ubuntu, Proxmox), especially if you plan to have your / on it. I wasted too much time on CentOS with ZFS, would not do it again.
- AviationAtom 4y agoZFS on Root just sounds like pain to me. I opt for MD RAID on root and then ZFS my other volumes. I would also say Ubuntu is probably the better choice for Linux ZFS, as CentOS seems to be lacking good support.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoZFS on root is really amazing on FreeBSD and the advantage is that you can snapshot your boot drive.
- mvanbaak 4y agohave a look at Boot Environments. It really is amazing.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoYes I know, bectl. I use it. I just didn't want to mention it because the discussion was mainly about Linux. But FreeBSD has a really strong toolchain for this indeed.
- indigodaddy 4y agoAlso a Solaris thing, yeah? (beadm etc)
- mustache_kimono 4y agoOnce you try it, you're never going back. Snapshots are made for things like system administration. Upgrade borked your system? Just rollback. Want to use the last version of your firewall config? I wrote a utility you might like to try, httm[1], which allows you to restore from your snapshot-ed unique versions. If you like ZFS, then trust me you have to have ZFS on root. [1]: https://crates.io/crates/httm https://crates.io/crates/httm
- AviationAtom 4y agoHad you previously done a Show HN on this? I feel like I saw it once before.
- mustache_kimono 4y agoSomeone else posted about it awhile ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31184404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31184404
- aborsy 4y agoYeah, Ubuntu has done a pretty good job with ZFS on root installation. Zero setup, works out of box. Highly recommend ZFS and Ubuntu with ZFS!
- AviationAtom 4y agoI think for me I am more concerned about trying to get the OS bootable again, if something becomes corrupted on the OS level. Even with MD RAID it came be a bit of a struggle to recover, but ZFS on Root seemed much harder to troubleshoot and repair. Perhaps I am mistaken in this belief though?
- aborsy 4y agoIsn’t ZFS there precisely to address your concern?! If OS doesn’t boot, you boot from the latest snapshot! Every time you run apt-get upgrade, a system snapshots is taken automatically and an entry is added to boot menu.
- AviationAtom 4y agoI guess I was referring to more to corruption resulting in an unbootable system. If you can't boot in then how would you roll it back?
- GekkePrutser 4y agoThat's where backups come in. Any filesystem can get corrupted. Though for ZFS it's less likely than with something like ext4. Even though both have journalling, only ZFS has copy on write.
- vetinari 4y agoMy problem was rather with problematic updates of zfs itself. The update "helpfully" updated initramfs for older kernels too... and if something broke, it broke previous versions too, so they all were unbootable. Eventually I ended up with an USB stick at hand with known bootable environment :(