7 ms·

btrfs isn't that terrible for desktop use right now. I mean, I wouldn't personally use it, I lost data on it a couple times four plus years ago, but it's come a

btrfs isn't that terrible for desktop use right now. I mean, I wouldn't personally use it, I lost data on it a couple times four plus years ago, but it's come a long way since then. (my preference is keep everything I care about on a fileserver like truenas running zfs with proper snapshotting, replication and backup and live dangerously on the desktop testing out bcachefs, but I recognize not everyone can live my life and some people just want a laptop with a reasonable filesystem resistant to bit rot.

jeroenhd 2y ago
I recently found out Fedora defaults to btrfs with zstd compression enabled by default. Seems to work well enough. On my personal devices I prefer BTRFS' snapshotting ability over the risk of having to restore from backup at some point.
- emacsen 2y ago
  Is there decent encryption support, or are we stuck using full disk encryption at the block level?
  - RussianCow 2y ago
    The latter at this point.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    I don't know, I just use FDE because I don't trust filesystem level encryption to protect against the many side channel attacks one can inject into a running system. LUKS is good enough for me. It looks like there's slow but steady progress on FSCRYPT support on BTRFS: https://bkhome.org/news/202403/linux-kernel-btrfs-supports-fscrypt.html https://bkhome.org/news/202403/linux-kernel-btrfs-supports-f... No idea what kind of state it is in currently.
arjvik 2y ago
How is bcachefs for personal use these days?
- chasil 2y ago
  The political situation for bcachefs is far from good, with pressure from Linus and a CoC violation. The net effect will likely delay stability. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Fixes-Two-Choices https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Fixes-Two-Choices https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CoC-Bcachefs-6.13 https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CoC-Bcachefs-6.13
  - koverstreet 2y ago
    Honestly the political situation will probably be a /good/ thing for long term stability, because I get a few months without any stupid arguments with upstream and finally get to write code in peace :) It sucks for users though, because now you have to get my tree if you want the latest fixes, and there's some stuff that should be backported for forwards compatibility with the scalability improvements coming soon [1]. [1]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-expensive-116975457 https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-expensive-116975457
    - chasil 2y ago
      I'm hoping to use your filesystem when it's ready. Everyone wishes that this were easier for you.
    - mappu 2y ago
      Echoing the sibling comment Kent, bcachefs is a really wonderful and important project. The whole world wants your filesystem to become the de-facto standard Linux filesystem for the next decade. One more month of LKML drama is a small price for that (at LKML prices).
    - homebrewer 2y ago
      Don't worry about the users, we'll manage somehow, it's such a tiny burden compared to the actual development. I'm just really happy to see you're not discouraged by the petty political mess and keep pushing through. Thank you!
tombert 2y ago
After a bit of peer pressure from a friend, I decided ended up using btrfs with my laptop about three months ago. It’s been fine thus far.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago
  Emphasize on ‘this far’… To me that kind of experiment is the equivalent of changing your car brake for something ‘open source’, maybe better, maybe not. But when you need them you’re going to want to make sure they’re working.
  - kccqzy 2y ago
    How much of an assurance do you want? I've been using btrfs on my desktop for 3+ years. And I've also experienced no issues thus far.
    - kalleboo 2y ago
      The btrfs volume on my Synology NAS is 6 years old now, with 24/7 operation (including hosting web sites with constant read/write database activity) and going through several volume resize operations. No issues.

jeroenhd 2y ago

I recently found out Fedora defaults to btrfs with zstd compression enabled by default. Seems to work well enough. On my personal devices I prefer BTRFS' snapshotting ability over the risk of having to restore from backup at some point.

emacsen 2y ago
Is there decent encryption support, or are we stuck using full disk encryption at the block level?
- RussianCow 2y ago
  The latter at this point.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I don't know, I just use FDE because I don't trust filesystem level encryption to protect against the many side channel attacks one can inject into a running system. LUKS is good enough for me. It looks like there's slow but steady progress on FSCRYPT support on BTRFS: https://bkhome.org/news/202403/linux-kernel-btrfs-supports-fscrypt.html https://bkhome.org/news/202403/linux-kernel-btrfs-supports-f... No idea what kind of state it is in currently.

arjvik 2y ago

How is bcachefs for personal use these days?

chasil 2y ago
The political situation for bcachefs is far from good, with pressure from Linus and a CoC violation. The net effect will likely delay stability. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Fixes-Two-Choices https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Fixes-Two-Choices https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CoC-Bcachefs-6.13 https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-CoC-Bcachefs-6.13
- koverstreet 2y ago
  Honestly the political situation will probably be a /good/ thing for long term stability, because I get a few months without any stupid arguments with upstream and finally get to write code in peace :) It sucks for users though, because now you have to get my tree if you want the latest fixes, and there's some stuff that should be backported for forwards compatibility with the scalability improvements coming soon [1]. [1]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-expensive-116975457 https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-expensive-116975457
  - chasil 2y ago
    I'm hoping to use your filesystem when it's ready. Everyone wishes that this were easier for you.
  - mappu 2y ago
    Echoing the sibling comment Kent, bcachefs is a really wonderful and important project. The whole world wants your filesystem to become the de-facto standard Linux filesystem for the next decade. One more month of LKML drama is a small price for that (at LKML prices).
  - homebrewer 2y ago
    Don't worry about the users, we'll manage somehow, it's such a tiny burden compared to the actual development. I'm just really happy to see you're not discouraged by the petty political mess and keep pushing through. Thank you!

tombert 2y ago

After a bit of peer pressure from a friend, I decided ended up using btrfs with my laptop about three months ago. It’s been fine thus far.

aucisson_masque 2y ago
Emphasize on ‘this far’… To me that kind of experiment is the equivalent of changing your car brake for something ‘open source’, maybe better, maybe not. But when you need them you’re going to want to make sure they’re working.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  How much of an assurance do you want? I've been using btrfs on my desktop for 3+ years. And I've also experienced no issues thus far.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    The btrfs volume on my Synology NAS is 6 years old now, with 24/7 operation (including hosting web sites with constant read/write database activity) and going through several volume resize operations. No issues.