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1 • ext4 file systems (by vern on 2021-04-12 00:18:10 GMT from United States)
I only use ext4 FS. Tried some of the more advanced systems, but in the end, I just use ext4
2 • File Systems (by C.Wizard on 2021-04-12 00:25:01 GMT from United States)
I prefer F2FS for SSDs and Ext4 for spinning hard drives.
3 • ext (by Gary W on 2021-04-12 00:48:30 GMT from Australia)
Mostly I use ext4. For older systems with some type of SSD I turn off its journalling (to save on writes). For really old systems, like my original eeepc, I don't believe ext4 has any advantage, so I use ext2.
4 • File system (by DaveW on 2021-04-12 00:53:27 GMT from United States)
I regularly read about all the things XFS and Btrfs can do, but so far nothing has given me a compelling reason to use anything but ext4 on my Linux Mint system.
5 • File system - mostly ext4 (by M.Z. on 2021-04-12 01:08:41 GMT from United States)
I do run Btrfs on /root for my new Mint install, otherwise ext4 all the way for KDE Neon, Mageia, and the /data partition they all point to for my files.
6 • EXT4, or others? (by Greg Zeng on 2021-04-12 02:07:28 GMT from Australia)
Modern Linux operating systems now are using Grub Customizer, or the equivalent now, to allow easy & quick modifications to the Linux systems. BTRFS & most (all?) other Linux file systems are ignored or incompatible with the menu systems of these Grub Customizer.
These customizer applications allow easier menu selection of which Linux kernels, which of many Linux & other operating systems. No CLI crudity is needed, in using nor in creating these choices.
Quick reading of Wikipedia explains the Linux file systems might be: "... ext2, ext3 and ext4), XFS, JFS, and btrfs". Wikipedia editors like myself should really explain that there are a few NTFS Linux file systems as well, with one only being open source.
Conversions, and read-write capabilities between these file systems varies, according to the versions of the applications that allow this. Microsoft has given legal permission to open source users to use their version of NTFS. Not many file systems allow the real-time compression, encryption, permissions, safety, speed, defragmenting, etc. of BTRFS & the advanced NTFS systems.
Linux is unique in that it allows some file systems to be hard-coded into the Linux kernel. This kernel is updated every few days, so close watching of the updates are needed to know if any update might allow better operation of any file system. Currently EXT4 is the best & most frequent supported system in Linux, until the open source coders start adding the Microsoft NTFS to the Linux kernel.
The applications to convert, & read-write between these various file systems should be listed as well, in the Wikipedia pages, if we get around to doing this.
7 • File system (by mmphosis on 2021-04-12 02:19:40 GMT from Canada)
I prefer ext4. I use Btrfs where space is constrained. I seem to need FAT / EFI System in order to boot some systems. I like having a large enough swap partition where the filesystem doesn't matter. I use FAT in it's various formats to exchange files but it has limitations. I use HFS on old Macs. I've used FUSE and other filesystems, but I prefer ext4 because it's boring and there are few surprises.
8 • fs in use (by cor on 2021-04-12 03:11:23 GMT from United States)
I use ext4 for my Kubuntu system. My video files are on 3 external HDD, all formatted XFS.
9 • Linux fs (by Jyrki on 2021-04-12 03:43:19 GMT from Czechia)
Currently I run ext2/ext3 since I do dualbooting with BSDs.
Before systemd started to spread, I was hapilly running XFS as a prime option, however when systemd started to gain attention, I wanted to have a backdoor so I installed BSD alongside Linux, so if one day, there will be no systemd-free Linux distro available, I am ready to switch.
10 • File systems (by tum on 2021-04-12 04:39:24 GMT from Bulgaria)
ZFS for everything and FAT for EFI, but I guess they are not popular to be included in your poll
11 • whatever FS comes with the distro (by uncle on 2021-04-12 04:57:13 GMT from New Zealand)
I run with whatever the distro I choose defaults to. In general that means ext4 (Mint and Manjaro). I have tried other for a bit in the past, but saw/discovered no quick or obvious advantage(s).
12 • fs (by dogma on 2021-04-12 04:59:04 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I've been sticking with ext3 for FreeBSD interoperability.
Showing my age: When I see XFS I think Xiafs.
I can't imagine ever trusting butter fs, as it's been too embattled for far too long.
I'm a little curious about f2fs but haven't actually tried it.
13 • file systems (by nanome on 2021-04-12 07:24:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Where I have been given the choice, I have mostly used ext2 over the last 2+ decades. I know ext2 is now implemented with ext3/ext4, but I want to avoid file systems with journals.
I would like to move to a "copy-on-write" [COW] file system, but the candidates: btrfs, ZFS and bcachefs are either too new or have "issues" making them risky for daily use.
14 • File system (by openCHRYSLER on 2021-04-12 08:13:33 GMT from Spain)
I use XFS in NVME, XFS has jornaling and parallelizes the reads and writes very well --best choice for NVME-- it has great performance. I do not include FAT32 for the EFI partition. Of course in my use --desktop-- the / tmp and the local cache I mount them on TMPFS in the FSTAB
15 • Linux file system (by Thomas Mueller on 2021-04-12 08:13:40 GMT from United States)
My initial preference is for ext2 for interoperability with FreeBSD and NetBSD, and also Haiku. But in the future, I might be more interested in ext3 and ext4, with ext2 for data that needs to be read-write accessible to/from NetBSD and FreeBSD.
16 • Seeking a better filesystem asks (by Alexandru on 2021-04-12 08:31:47 GMT from Austria)
First of all, different filesystems perform better in different scenarios. And this is sufficient argument to switch filesystem when some scenario is your main use-case. Second, there are filesystems supported by default kernel, for which there is no option during installation of some distribution.
The following procedure is proved working for switching the root filesystem:
1. Boot your system from some live distribution whose kernel is known to support both old and new filesystem.
2. Mount and backup installed root filesystem with rsync, dd, cp, whatever.
3. Unmount that partition and format it into new filesystem.
4. Mount that partition and restore your backup with rsync, dd, cp, whatever.
5. Modify /etc/fstab of the installation on restored partition to reflect filesystem change (new UUID, new filesystem, new opteions).
6. Unmount that partition and reboot.
This procedure only works for distributions where /etc folder contains actual configuration of the system and not just mirrors it for compatibility reasons. For some reason I could not add separate /home mount option in installed Mint system by modifying /etc/fstab.
17 • Switch installed system to new filesystem (by Alexandru on 2021-04-12 08:40:37 GMT from Austria)
First of all, different filesystems perform better for different use-cases, and if your main usage is some of them, it is sufficient reason for switching. Second, the kernel may support some filesystem, but the installation program may not offer it as installation option.
The following procedure is proved working:
1. Boot from live media whose kernel is known to support both old and new filesystem.
2. Mount the partition where your installed system resides and backup it with rsync, dd, cp, whatever.
3. Unmount that partition and format it to new filesystem.
4. Mount that partition and restore your backup with rsync, dd, cp, whatever.
5. Modify /etc/fstab on that partition to reflect the changes (new UUID, new filesystem, new mount options, etc).
6. Unmount that partition and reboot.
This procedure only works for distribution whose /etc folder actually contains configuration for the system, not just mirrors it for compatibility reasons. I faile!d to add separate /home mount point for already installed Mint Linux just by modifying its /etc/fstab configuration.
18 • File System (by Luca on 2021-04-12 08:41:05 GMT from Italy)
In my Manjaro system, I use ext4 for /home, btrfs for all the other directories. My btrfs partition is handled by snapper, so that I would be able to rollback my system if an update goes wrong
19 • file systems (by on 2021-04-12 08:52:28 GMT from Switzerland)
@13 ZFS an Btrfs are widely used, stable filesystems (OpenSuse, and now Fedora too, uses btrfs by default; ZFS is used by FreeBsd among other.
I mostly use ext4 because the OS i use default to ext4.
20 • Judging Venom harshly (by uselessmore999 on 2021-04-12 09:00:24 GMT from Germany)
The first thing that struck me when I visited Venom Linux's website was that it won't display any content whatsoever without allowing Javascript. That's just utterly disrespectful, and quite dumb on top of that. And what you get to see when you allow Javascript most certainly doesn't make up for that in any way. Why would it?
I'm also beginning to grow sick and tired of this "targeting experienced users" drivel, which is, in most cases, a sorry excuse for providing a rough-around-the-edges, less capable distribution based on misguided ideas of minimalism and being "lightweight". This is really all mostly a euphemism for "We just don't have the resources to do things in reasonable ways."
E.g., writing a package manager in POSIX shell is not a sane thing to do and there are already enough examples of this nonsense out there. I just hope they at least use Shellcheck.
Also, solely source-based systems are just a drag, except when you have a truly compelling reason to use them. Desktop/laptop power user wanting more control and have things run faster is, in my experience, never a compelling reason to run a source-based distribution. The real reason these kinds of distributions (like CRUX) are source-based seems to be that their maintainers simply cannot afford providing pre-built binary packages.
Then, I wonder what the Venom team means by saying they provide a "collection of small packages which are trimmed down by remov[ing] unnecessary things like locale, doc, gtk-doc, info pages, (man pages are kept)". If this means that these things are just thrown out, with no way to install them as separate packages, then this is highly questionable practice. E.g., given the status of manual pages in GNU, you better have some of those info pages on your system, especially if it lacks a permanent internet connection for finding trash answers on ExchangeOverflow _instead_ of reading the actual documentation or at least giving it a try. Having useful and complete documentation available on a c!
omputer directly matters, and any sane system should be largely self-documenting.
Last but not least, why are they still using MD5 for their image checksums?
21 • @3 which ext for eee pc (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-12 10:03:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
On my fleet of eee pc I have toyed with using the original ext2 filesystem but the booting is not as pretty and some errors have occurred.
All my eee are on ext4. I have never been aware of wearing out a single cell on the ssd of an eee pc and would love to see proof of this ever happening.
22 • Debian election (by bravenewworld on 2021-04-12 10:47:41 GMT from United States)
"...Chandran is campaigning with an effort to promote diversity in the Debian developer ranks." In other words if Chandran becomes the new project leader then you can expect to see positions at Debian going to lesbians of color, with an eyepatch, who preferred to be addressed as Lord Zoltar on days beginning with a "T", over and above anyone else regardless of the knowledge and coding ability of either party.
23 • zfs (by dave on 2021-04-12 10:58:17 GMT from Australia)
I always use zfs
24 • filesystems (by Jesse on 2021-04-12 11:08:55 GMT from Canada)
@10 ZFS is not a native Linux filesystem. FAT is not one which can be used for a regular install due to permission issues.
25 • File systems (by John on 2021-04-12 11:15:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
I always use ext4. I have tried btrfs a few times but always end up going back to ext4 because of problems with multi-booting.
26 • Venom task bar (by BJ on 2021-04-12 12:06:03 GMT from United States)
Assumption here that the taskbar you found on Venom is tint2.
I also had a similar experience with another distro install I was testing. I had added openbox with the tint2 from their/Debian repos, and had the same right click-taskbar disappear phenom. I also had the right click autoclosing images displayed with feh, so initially I started looking at something more global for the action. But in the end, in tint2, it just turned out to be a weird choice in the tint2rc con file that had the mouse right click set to close the program. The feh issue had to do with an odd font (yudit.ttf) that somehow didn't get installed.
Neither of those occurances ever happened before or since,
Venon sounds mildly interesting, but I'm currently having a good experience using antiX core with runit and openbox et al added. And I know I've got a good solid core underneath that anticapitalista and the crew have woven for me. But always enjoy your looks into fresh territory.
27 • Subject (by Cheker on 2021-04-12 13:20:27 GMT from Portugal)
Was a slow week for releases, eh? I want to look at FreeBSD 13 when it finally comes out.
Venom looks interesting, 87mb logged in is pretty crazy. I hope they fix its shortcomings and it sticks around.
I have no strong feelings towards any particular filesystem, I stick with the distro's default, which is almost always ext4 in my case.
28 • file systems (by nicu on 2021-04-12 13:25:01 GMT from Moldova)
I always used ext4 cause it is default linux file system.
And since then didn't switch to other file systems cause it is simple very good, and it is good enough,
I tried XFS, some things felt faster, some things felt slower, not compelling to switch
I tried Btrfs, user experience felt bad, very complicated system, majority of things felt slower, not compelling to switch
I tried ZFS, user experience felt so so, very complicated system, some things felt faster, some things felt slower, not compelling to switch.
I tried JFS, everything felt slower, definitely ext 4 is newer and an improvement,
So Ext4 is simply good enough for me.
For same reason on BSDs for me UFS is good enough for me.
p.s: the same story as Plan 9 vs Unix 7
29 • Preferred filesystems (by AdamB on 2021-04-12 14:40:38 GMT from Australia)
For many years I have happily used Ext3/Ext4. Ext4 has, until now, been my default for new installations.
I studied Btrfs when it started to be talked about, but found it intimidating, and noted the warnings about it being experimental.
Recently my storage requirements have become more complex, and I have used software RAID, LVM, dm-crypt and Btrfs - all working well. I have also started experimenting with ZFS.
On a recent installation, for the first time I put the root filesytem on Btrfs, using subvolumes, so that certain parts of the filesystem can be snapshotted separately.
Nowadays I am becoming concerned about long-term storage reliability, so filesystems that monitor the integrity of both data and metadata are of great interest - hence my interest in Btfs and ZFS.
If you need both encryption and mirroring, built-in encryption greatly simplifies an installation. If Btrfs supported encryption, I probably wouldn't bother with ZFS.
My experiment with ZFS is under Devuan 3, but its version of ZFS doesn't support encryption, so I will have to try a more recent distro - maybe Debian Testing?
30 • FTP? WTF! (by Sitwon on 2021-04-12 15:21:37 GMT from United States)
I am floored that in this decade there are still people relying on FTP for *anything*, let alone arguing that it should continue to be included by default in a modern operating system distribution.
There is nothing FTP has to offer that other protocols can't do better, faster, and more securely. Just let it die like BBCs and Gopher and acoustic couplers.
31 • @21 @3 eeePC (by J-F on 2021-04-12 15:23:37 GMT from Canada)
Which distribution to you use on your eeePC? I have an original 701SD with 4 (or is it just 2) GB of storage and I struggled to get antiX on it. Is there a distribution that is known to run well & install easily on the first-generation eeePCs?
32 • FS (by That's Nobody on 2021-04-12 15:55:31 GMT from Canada)
I've been using BTRFS out of some vague notion of it being better, plus a couple distributions I've tried having it set as the default. If the snapshots work as advertised, it would be nice to have that time machine / system restore type of capability. Otherwise I'm not fussy so long as it's a modern journaling FS.
33 • Filesystems (by Robert on 2021-04-12 15:57:25 GMT from United States)
I use ZFS for /home. I'm not one to claim its the holy grail of filesystems, but I do like its featureset. I chose it because btrfs was definitely not ready at the time, and there's no super compelling reason to switch now.
I use XFS for root because getting root on ZFS was too much of a hassle. No particular reason that I chose it over ext4, it's just what I use.
I might end up switching to btrfs when there's actually concensus that it's good to go. Facebook uses it, opensuse uses it, and fedora either uses it or is about to switch, so it can't be too far off. Will be nice to get away from the minor inconvenience that comes with out-of-tree drivers.
34 • Of File Systems... (by tom joad on 2021-04-12 16:05:36 GMT from United States)
I voted EXT4. It just seems to work fine for what I do and how I use Linux. It is a 'Steady Eddie.'
35 • @31 - Distros for eeePC (by Uncle Slacky on 2021-04-12 16:47:31 GMT from France)
I'd recommend Void (LXDE or Enlightenment), something Devuan-based like Refracta or EXE GNU/Linux, Q4OS Trinity, or Slitaz or BionicPup if those are too big and/or slow for you. You could even run Bodhi or MX Linux if you use an SD card for your system partition (and put /home on the internal SSD).
There's also Haiku OS if you're feeling adventurous.
36 • filesystems integritty (by nanome on 2021-04-12 17:11:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
@13: saying that I wanted to use a COW file system [eg btrfs, ZFS etc] means that I worry about fs failures and/or "bitrot".
My solution is to deploy lsync to create a near-realtime "RAID" copies of the file system on 2 or more devices [partitions, external SSD drives], and rsync+tar to create archival copies on offline devices. Not rocket science, but peace of mind.
I have watched a hard drive as it failed on multiple sectors, but bitrot is a more nebulous phenomenon.
37 • Linux File Systems (by tosim on 2021-04-12 17:31:45 GMT from United States)
I'm a distro hopper looking t various Linux OS', but my main driver is MINT, with ext4. However, as I'm "heavy" into several Puppy, and Dog distros, I also use ext2, ext3.
38 • @31 eeePC (by Sohl on 2021-04-12 18:00:16 GMT from United States)
Back in the day, I had a 10-inch eeePC model 1000-something. I put Fedora (Core?) on it for work and TinyCore LInux for playing around. Both worked fairly well. Fedora probably was using ext2. I can't recall if Tinycore ran as a 'frugal' installation where a file cache stored on the Fedora partition or maybe it had its own. But the main thing is TinyCore runs out of RAM normally so there are very few disk IO operations and so low wear-and-tear on the disk/SSD.
39 • File systems (by vw72 on 2021-04-12 18:08:16 GMT from United States)
I use btrfs for / and ext4 for home. btrfs has saved my butt several times when a system update didn't go well. I just use snapper to revert to the prior snapshot.
40 • fsarchiver can convert filesystems during restore (by Kingneutron on 2021-04-12 19:06:47 GMT from United States)
> So far as I know there aren't any tools for converting an existing ext4 filesystem to XFS
PROTIP: Look into ' fsarchiver ' - on Debian/Ubuntu and Centos-compatible systems** you can make a bare-metal backup with it to a usb or shared drive. Then boot into a systemrescuecd environment (or second installed distro if you dual- or triple-boot) and restore on the fly to XFS using the original installed disk/partition.
**Some older systems (like MX18) if it's not in the repos or only has an old version that doesn't support zstd compression, you might compile it from source.
You will need to modify /etc/fstab and take out any filesystem-specific options ( commit, errors=remount-ro and the like ) either before backup or before rebooting into the restored system and change the root filesystem type to xfs. (Changing it to auto may work but I haven't tested it.) Easiest way to reboot into the restored system is use super grub disc and then once you have root, ' grub-install /dev/sdX ' and ' update-grub '.
REF:
https://www.fsarchiver.org/
https://www.fsarchiver.org/installation/
https://distrowatch.com/supergrub
41 • Some notes on XFS vs ext4 (by Kingneutron on 2021-04-12 19:30:41 GMT from United States)
Note that if you switch root from ext4 to XFS, you lose the ability to shrink your root filesystem. Mostly applies to VMs running LVM, may not matter to a home user. XFS also supports auto-adding inodes on the fly. In my experience, XFS is noticeably faster than ext4 on the same hardware.
For the curious, I have a full set of scripts for backing up/restoring Linux root with fsarchiver here:
https://github.com/kneutron/ansitest/tree/master/VIRTBOX
42 • Linux file systems... (by Tech in San Diego on 2021-04-12 20:18:41 GMT from United States)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this weeks article. I always seem to learn a tidbit or 2 that I hadn't considered in my Linux environment.
I use BTRFS on openSUSE Tumbleweed. For me personally, the snapshot utility is an invaluable tool.
@2 Great article on F2FS. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/F2FS
Thanks to all in the DW family!
43 • Filesystem (by Will on 2021-04-12 21:55:15 GMT from United States)
I put ext4, cuz that’s my preference of what’s commonly available by default. I’d very much prefer ZFS if it would work as well as it does on FreeBSD and it’s getting close w/openzfs on Ubuntu, even including boot on ZFS, so maybe soon :)!
44 • Distro for eeePC (by Gary W on 2021-04-12 22:40:11 GMT from Australia)
@31 Yes, I have a 701 (recently sold a 901). As @35 says, EXE is a good match for this low-spec hardware; from memory, occupies only 51Mb before logging in to the Trinity desktop.
45 • Linux File Systems- (by behto5 on 2021-04-13 03:41:19 GMT from Uruguay)
I completely agree with John @25: 'I always use ext4. I have tried btrfs sometime but ended up going back to ext4 because of problems with multi-booting'. I set up all my machines with a multi-boot scheme and ext4 simply just works.
46 • oh Debian.. (by Dave on 2021-04-13 04:01:13 GMT from United States)
Debian did a diversity hire when they put Sam Hartman in as project leader-- a guy who seemed to care much more about 'feelings' than software and was fully wililng to let the systemd cult walk all over everyone, so long as his emotions weren't negatively impacted. He was chosen purely because he has a disability and Debian voters wanted to show off just how indiscriminant they are.
When systemd critics rightly called foul at some of Hartman's thinly-veiled systemd pandering, he basically cried about it. After that debacle, we got the whole 'init diversity' lie. I used to love Debian, but the project has become just another insane social experiment. Saying Debian (or really anything) needs 'more diversity' is just codeword for saying less white males. Chandran is just another power-hungry, antiwhite race baiter, who feels emboldened by current political trends. How about they remove all of the work done by white males and then see how much is left??
47 • Ext4 + Tune4fs tools (by James on 2021-04-13 07:33:32 GMT from New Zealand)
+1 another happy ext4 user here. All home machines use debian with ext4.
Also file system tools for ext4 are really easy to use e.g Tune4fs - very easy to configure journaling to switch off on sd cards for raspberry pi projects.
48 • @31 - which distro for eee pc : (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-13 08:59:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Currently,
Install LMDE 3 Cinnamon, run synaptic, set all manual to auto, keep the ones you want, autoremove bloat
Update and upgrade.
Point sources to Debbie and Devuan, then apt upgrade to Debbowulf.
Before starting desktop, we are using less than 20 MB ram
Desktop configurations can range from using as little as 50MB to as much as 170MB (a fully loaded taskbar, file-manager, music-player, avahi, etc)
You should have less than 800 packages. OH, don't forget to delete all the '@2x' icons and all the themes you don't need, and all the docs, if you want to fit debbowulf into less than 2.5 GiB
For the 2G surf, true mint debbie is not currently possible, so here we are using antix, debian, or devuan netinstalls with lightweight mint bodykits.
49 • @31 - assets: (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-13 09:20:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
#Add the following entries to the /etc/apt/apt.conf configuration file:
APT::Install-Recommends "0" ; APT::Install-Suggests "0" ;
use bleachbit or later versions of localepurge to remove extra languages.
Don't install xorg, just install the bits you need, ditto the desktop environment. Remove cinnamon, install mate-session-manager mate-control-center marco. That's all you need for 'mate-desktop'.
Don't use network-manager, use ifupdown or iwd - wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse
For initial install, mount /usr or /usr/share to a separate usb drive.
It's helpful to have a drive prepared, 16GB is fine, with a system installed for doctoring the system you are installing, and another two partitions, one for your /usr and another for your /var/cache/apt/archives. On a fresh LMDE3/4 install, /usr is more than around 4.3 GiB.
50 • @31 - assets: (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-13 09:23:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
(when system is small enough, rsync /usr over to main drive and comment /usr entry out of fstab)
51 • filesystem (by James on 2021-04-13 10:06:00 GMT from United States)
I use what is the default when I install an OS. So far that has been ext. 4, with the exception of Parrot, which recently switched to Btfrs.
52 • @10 ZFS is not a native Linux filesystem (by Vukota on 2021-04-13 12:00:14 GMT from Serbia)
Jessy, I am really disappointed with this week's pool choices. Usually, you are very good with explaining what different pool options mean, but this week it is not the case. I was really looking to understand what "non-native filesystem module" is supposed to mean, but to my surprise google gave me almost no results. Same thing with opposite term "native filesystem module". So before offering this option in the pool, you were supposed to explain it a bit to your readers.
If "native" in this context assumes built-in (or in simple words "bundled") support in the kernel (or native, not user space module), question is who (and which distribution) bundles what support. Ubuntu in their last couple iterations support ZFS as "bundled" (though marked experimental), thus this option (ZFS) is clearly missing in the pool and is questionable if it can be assumed as "non-native", when it is kind of "bundled" in some distributions like *buntu and derivatives like Mint.
There is another level of debate in the community of whether Oracle or some third party company may hold copyright or patent claims against ZFS (ZoL) use, though if people were really that worried, they would never use Linux in the first place. Oracle's loss of recent law suite proves this point.
Now, on the ZFS and technical point. I didn't use it until recently due to luck of support in mainstream distributions and did not see a real value for common desktop (non-server) use cases, but since I saw mainstream support from Ubuntu, I started evaluating if it can be a good choice.
To my surprise, it really is and here is my why...
(1) Encryption - I was looking to use encryption on all my desktop systems with Linux and backups, but LUKS even though good, is complex and adds another layer to your file system. With ZFS, currently, you get it at the file system level, what IMHO makes it more natural and performant.
(2) Compression - We always have problems with space sooner or later and having seamless performant compression at file system level is always welcome.
(3) Caching - If there is enough RAM on the system, ZFS brings this to a whole new level, compared to others.
(4) Backups, snapshots and replication - File system built-in support with builtin encryption and compression - Can you ask for more? Works perfectly on the setups I have.
(5) Optimizations, flexibility and data safety - ZFS has unmatched potential in this regards, and tweaks at file system level that you can do seems endless.
(6) Performance in recent versions bundled with *buntus is fantastic (for compression and encryption alone compared to unencrypted and in general).
Now, there are some cons too, but I think that benefits outweigh cons.
(1) Setup/maintenance is more complex, but you may go with (almost) default choices and be good with them (except for the swap) on most modern desktop/laptop systems.
(2) in *buntus you don't have an easy way (yet) to install it as a dual boot, and in others it is very labor intensive.
53 • @31, et al -- the EeePC (by R. Cain on 2021-04-13 15:40:59 GMT from United States)
You might try antiX 'base' version of antiX 17. The 'base' version (≈ 700 MB) is a very capable distro, whereas the 'full'' version is, well, a very *full* and complete version, with everything--and a LOT more--than you'll ever need.
https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-17/FAQ/index.html
Do NOT try antiX 19. Version 17 is still extremely current and very capable, and offers the best chance of getting a very good, modern distro on your EeePC 701-4G (the 701's main problem / stumbling block is its 900 MHz (max; sometimes it's a lot lower) Celeron processor; this is not a problem on later EeePCs). It's really a shame that Xandros was forced out of business by Microsoft, when it (Microsoft) was scared silly by the wild acceptance of the EeePC 701.
19 suffers from the same plague which infects all modern Linux distros, in the name of progress, of course: bloat.
If you have an EeePC 900, 901, or 1000 (-series), you can't do ANY better than installing MX-Linux 18, which will give you a brand-new ten-year-old (or more) machine. See here for VERY GOOD details:
"MX Linux MX-18 & 10-year-old EeePC netbook - Fantastic"
Updated: April 1, 2019
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/eeepc-mx-linux.html
54 • All real eee pc are at least 11 years old! (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-13 16:07:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
The base version of antix is too big. Use the net install and ** skip the select and install software stage **
I don't mean untick all the boxes, I mean totally skip it. Antix with a minty desktop and full audio capabilities can be installed into a 1.4 GiB partition with ease, and a very trim desktop version fits into 1.1 GiB
55 • ZFS (by ozzy81 on 2021-04-14 07:59:37 GMT from Australia)
I was really hoping that BTRFS would have seen more progression in the RAID5/6 space since the "write hole" bug was identified several years ago, but it feels like a bit of a dead-end without it. I know you can have BTRFS on top of an LVM2-based RAID-5 logical volume, but having a logical filesystem layer under BTRFS has a performance impact.
I've been using ZFS on two FreeNAS for more than 10 years and has a very impressive featureset compared to most other filesystems (even more so with FreeBSD 12.2 now using OpenZFS 2.0 instread of the aged implementation from illumnos/OpenSolaris).
If only Oracle could come to party and relax the licensing rules for it (fat chance)
56 • File systems (by TheTKS on 2021-04-14 11:00:48 GMT from Canada)
I have used the default that comes with the distros I use, and that’s mostly ext4. It works for my needs, and I have yet to run into a problem with it - yes, probably just a matter of time, but rely on backups to recover if/when that ever happens, and hard copies of critical documents.
Not Linux, but OpenBSD with FFS2 has also yet to give me a problem.
TKS
57 • filesystems (by bananabob on 2021-04-16 08:43:51 GMT from United States)
I like the ext4 filesystem because it just works. I am the most familiar with ext4, plus it's semi-compatible with ext2 and ext3. Plus I know what to do for disaster recovery.
58 • File system choices. (by R. Cain on 2021-04-16 15:10:15 GMT from United States)
ext4's compatibility goes all the way back to ext2: a long time, a lot of history with UNIX and Linux, and a lot of history in a lot of working situations.
ext4 is a 'journaling' file system, which makes recovery easier if problems should occur, and is the main reason for its very wide acceptance
ext2 is not a 'journaling' file system; consequently, it uses fewer 'writes' to the system's hard drive. Because of this characteristic, many people consider the use of ext2 essential when any type solid-state drive is used.
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