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> Linux filesystems seem to be evolving all the time (try to install any new distro today and check out how many filesystems you can pick from the dropdown...)

> Linux filesystems seem to be evolving all the time (try to install any new distro today and check out how many filesystems you can pick from the dropdown...) This sounds like evolution of options more than evolution of existing file systems Is ext4 still not most popular for most end users? Curious how much ext4 has changed vs NTFS past... ~20 years (ext4 went stable 2008 apparently)

Cu3PO42 3y ago
ext4 remains the default for a lot of distros and probably most end users, but other options are common as well. openSUSE and Fedora now default to btrfs, RHEL defaults to XFS.
- loeg 3y ago
  XFS also has not changed much in the past 10-20 years :-).
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS lists what I would call significant improvements, in particular, > Linux kernel 4.8 in August 2016 added a new feature, "reverse mapping". This is the foundation for a large set of planned features: snapshots, copy-on-write (COW) data, data deduplication, reflink copies, online data and metadata scrubbing, highly accurate reporting of data loss or bad sectors, and significantly improved reconstruction of damaged or corrupted filesystems. This work required changes to XFS's on-disk format.
  - keep_reading 3y ago
    Wow you've missed so much. It's gone from "only fast with huge files" to being one of the most performant and capable filesystems in existence
distract8901 3y ago
My bet is that btrfs will replace ext4 in the nearish future. It's the default for Arch, which also comes default with filesystem snapshots before any system updates. It's pretty nice. I think it also supports some flavor of volumes or virtual partitions, but I don't have any real use for that kind of thing. The snapshots are really good though. Very fast and don't take up a ton of space, somehow.
- kcb 3y ago
  Never using btrfs no matter how default it comes. Only filesystem I've had data loss with, 2 district occasions.
  - hardwaresofton 3y ago
    Would you mind noting how recent the data loss was?
    - kcb 3y ago
      Latest in the past year or so. All long after it was "stable".
      - hardwaresofton 3y ago
        Appreciate it. As someone who basically continues to use ZFS happily and didn't kick the tires because of the stability & ergonomics issues in the past, this is concerning to hear... Looks like kicking the tires will remain somewhat in the future for me.
      - v3ss0n 3y ago
        It's much stable after 6.4 kernel. Last year was not really stable yet. I faced too, problem is I didn't know we have to schedule a `btrfs scrub`. After kernel update and scrub, everything works smooth.
  - Chmouel 3y ago
    I recently had a bit of a data hiccup on my desktop laptop, where I'm using Btrfs with LVM encryption. What's weird is that I started getting these random reboots out of the blue, with no error messages to explain what was going on. I was scratching my head for a while, thinking it might be a hardware issue. Then, in frustration, I rebooted into my Windows partition, which I rarely ever use. to see if I could back up my stuff and figure out why I wasn't having the same reboot problems in Windows. After trying a bunch of Btrfs repair commands over a bootable usb disk I found online, I hit a wall with some errors that couldn't be fixed. So, I threw in the towel and reinstalled my system with ext4. It's been running smoothly for three weeks now with no more error headaches. Could not find the logs of the errors anymore unfortunately to report.
toyg 3y ago
Btrfs seems to be the new standard, it might well end up being the one big thing Oracle did for Linux; it definitely evolved significantly over the last 15 years.
rsaxvc 3y ago
Ext4 has changed their binary format twice with only forward compatibility. Mounting a new, large ext4 partition often won't work on old machines. Source: had to patch yaboot(PowerPC Mac bootloader) to update ext4 to boot with /boot on ext4.
fulafel 3y ago
ext2/3/4 are the same on-disk filesystem with features added, so could also compare the timeline from the 90's. NTFS and ext2 have the same year (1993) listed on WP as intro date.

Cu3PO42 3y ago

ext4 remains the default for a lot of distros and probably most end users, but other options are common as well. openSUSE and Fedora now default to btrfs, RHEL defaults to XFS.

loeg 3y ago
XFS also has not changed much in the past 10-20 years :-).
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS lists what I would call significant improvements, in particular, > Linux kernel 4.8 in August 2016 added a new feature, "reverse mapping". This is the foundation for a large set of planned features: snapshots, copy-on-write (COW) data, data deduplication, reflink copies, online data and metadata scrubbing, highly accurate reporting of data loss or bad sectors, and significantly improved reconstruction of damaged or corrupted filesystems. This work required changes to XFS's on-disk format.
- keep_reading 3y ago
  Wow you've missed so much. It's gone from "only fast with huge files" to being one of the most performant and capable filesystems in existence

distract8901 3y ago

My bet is that btrfs will replace ext4 in the nearish future. It's the default for Arch, which also comes default with filesystem snapshots before any system updates. It's pretty nice. I think it also supports some flavor of volumes or virtual partitions, but I don't have any real use for that kind of thing. The snapshots are really good though. Very fast and don't take up a ton of space, somehow.

kcb 3y ago
Never using btrfs no matter how default it comes. Only filesystem I've had data loss with, 2 district occasions.
- hardwaresofton 3y ago
  Would you mind noting how recent the data loss was?
  - kcb 3y ago
    Latest in the past year or so. All long after it was "stable".
    - hardwaresofton 3y ago
      Appreciate it. As someone who basically continues to use ZFS happily and didn't kick the tires because of the stability & ergonomics issues in the past, this is concerning to hear... Looks like kicking the tires will remain somewhat in the future for me.
    - v3ss0n 3y ago
      It's much stable after 6.4 kernel. Last year was not really stable yet. I faced too, problem is I didn't know we have to schedule a `btrfs scrub`. After kernel update and scrub, everything works smooth.
- Chmouel 3y ago
  I recently had a bit of a data hiccup on my desktop laptop, where I'm using Btrfs with LVM encryption. What's weird is that I started getting these random reboots out of the blue, with no error messages to explain what was going on. I was scratching my head for a while, thinking it might be a hardware issue. Then, in frustration, I rebooted into my Windows partition, which I rarely ever use. to see if I could back up my stuff and figure out why I wasn't having the same reboot problems in Windows. After trying a bunch of Btrfs repair commands over a bootable usb disk I found online, I hit a wall with some errors that couldn't be fixed. So, I threw in the towel and reinstalled my system with ext4. It's been running smoothly for three weeks now with no more error headaches. Could not find the logs of the errors anymore unfortunately to report.

toyg 3y ago

Btrfs seems to be the new standard, it might well end up being the one big thing Oracle did for Linux; it definitely evolved significantly over the last 15 years.

rsaxvc 3y ago

Ext4 has changed their binary format twice with only forward compatibility. Mounting a new, large ext4 partition often won't work on old machines. Source: had to patch yaboot(PowerPC Mac bootloader) to update ext4 to boot with /boot on ext4.

fulafel 3y ago

ext2/3/4 are the same on-disk filesystem with features added, so could also compare the timeline from the 90's. NTFS and ext2 have the same year (1993) listed on WP as intro date.