On the State of Linux File Systems 319
kev009 writes to recommend his editorial overview of the past, present and future of Linux file systems: ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, Reiser4, ext4, Btrfs, and Tux3. "In hindsight it seems somewhat tragic that JFS or even XFS didn't gain the traction that ext3 did to pull us through the 'classic' era, but ext3 has proven very reliable and has received consistent care and feeding to keep it performing decently. ... With ext4 coming out in kernel 2.6.28, we should have a nice holdover until Btrfs or Tux3 begin to stabilize. The Btrfs developers have been working on a development sprint and it is likely that the code will be merged into Linus's kernel within the next cycle or two."
Lightweight (Score:5, Insightful)
A cute FA in some ways, but bereft of content. Wish there was something to see here, like comparisons regarding integrity, access costs, evolution from JFS and Andrews journaled FS, etc. No real meat (with apologies to the vegetarians out there). Just a lightweight historical analysis with some glib suggestions of current adaptations.
Re:ZFS!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't ext2 already be that unified file system? Oh, that's right -- GPL prevents anybody else from using. Just like GPL prevents ZFS code from being used in Linux. Looks like the problem is the GPL.
Re:still doing fs on top of RAID :-( (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux developers are aware of this issue; this is one of the things which is addressed by btrfs.
Re:ZFS!! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you can't reimplement ZFS under any other license (CDDL is licensing some of the patents that cover the ZFS only to the users of the original implementation or its derivatives). I'd say it's *BOTH* GPL's and CDDL's fault (what's more, Sun chose CDDL exactly because it's GPL-incompatible).
Re:ZFS!! (Score:5, Insightful)
ZFS has redefined the way future filesystems are going to be designed. But there is no way that it's going to be the "last" filesystem.
As shocking as it may seem to those who have drunk the marketing kool aid, we'll see more filesystems. Filesystem research is as alive as it always was. They'll try to copy the good ideas of ZFS and they will try to avoid the disadvantages (which every software has). So you are never going to have "1 unified filesystem". It's never going to happen. And it's a good thing.
Re:ZFS!! (Score:2, Insightful)
It will be nice when we can transport disks around, similar to fat(32), and not have to worry about whether another OS will be able to read it or not.
I'm no filesystem expert... But I think different filesystems for different purposes is a good idea... Do you want to use ZFS on a flash disk or external harddrive... (the ladder might make a little sense).
Generally I don't get all the fuss about ZFS... Okay, it's cool that we'll need more energy to reach it's limits than needed to boil this oceans...
smb/nfs/iscsi support integrated, Volume AND partition manager.
Yes, that's cool... But why does it need to be *in* the filesystem???
I'm not expert but AFAIK we've got LVM for volume management, and we can run any filesystem ontop of LVM... I think the idea of having volume management separate from filesystem sounds like a good idea, as it would enable you to used different filesystems for different purposes...
But hey maybe I'm missing something, why not improve or create a replacement for LVM instead of including volume management in the filesystem?
Re:still doing fs on top of RAID :-( (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this we? ZFS is the fix for all of the issues you mentioned, it does checksums on every block it writes and the RAID 5 write hole is history. You can also set how many copies per file you want to keep.
Re:The article is incorrect with respect to ext4.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Repeato ad absurdium...
All these fancy features, but we are still using filename extensions (eg. .zip) to specify data types.
Did OOP even happen?
Re:The article is incorrect with respect to ext4.. (Score:2, Insightful)
What do you want to specify the data type?
Some non-human readable meta data? If someone sends you a Not-a-virus.txt in an email attachment, what kind of file is it? An executable a funny story? How would you know?
Re:The article is incorrect with respect to ext4.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Seconded.
The one most wanted feature is the ability to store the mime type (or something like that) of a file.
With all the search features in modern OSes, even the file name should take second place to that.
Re:ZFS!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Sun are licensing the software for you under a free and open source software license. The only thing stopping you from using it is that it's a license that doesn't agree with the ideology of the "all FOSS must be viral" GPL guys, and thus can't be used with GPLed software. There's plenty of non-GPLed projects that are happily getting on and using ZFS, but GPL guys can't. I'd say that makes it pretty obvious what the problem is.
JFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad to see JFS being overlooked so. While it may not have the postmodern features to compete in the wake of JFS, it's still in many cases the best current filesystem for linux. It's remarkably crashproof, has the lowest CPU loading of any of {ext3 jfs xfs reiser3}, good all-round performance (generally either first or second in benchmarks) and is fast at deleting big files. I haven't used anything else in a couple of years - I used to put reiser3 on /var, but got fed up with its crash intolerance. It's sad to see jfs so overlooked, because at least until btrfs or tux3 come out it's arguably the best option available.
OSS - reinventing the wheel (Score:2, Insightful)
Reiser4's name is a killer (Score:5, Insightful)
Over and above this, it'll need a new name. I know it doesn't make one iota technical difference, but people are fussy about such things; change the name, and people don't care if it was developed by fiends. Keep it and people will find excuses to edge away and it'll wither on the vine.
The Volkswagen was a runaway success despite its Nazi origins, but had it been named the "Hitlerwagen", things would have probably turned out a lot differently.
Re:ZFS!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a grip.
The people of Jonestown CHOSE their fate. They weren't systematically hunted down for their race nor were they killed for being in the wrong city in the wrong building at the wrong time. Everyone in that cult CHOSE to give up their worldly belongings, uproot their lives to Guyana, AND drink the cyanide laced juice (not actually kool-aid) for "revolutionary" causes.
As long as propaganda and rhetoric have their effects, we should ABSOLUTELY continue to use that metaphor as a reminder against blind faith and zealotry. If anything, lets be a bit more accurate and call it "drinking the flavor-aid".
Re:ZFS!! (Score:2, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with requiring software to be viral. In those terms, the CDDL is just as viral as the GPL. You can never link CDDL stuff with GPL stuff, just as surely as if it were proprietary.
*BSD has no such troubles. It is a truly free and open source license.
The CDDL, like the GPL, requires that all derived works be licensed under itself, and subject to the same restrictions and freedoms. The freedoms and restrictions the CDDL provides were chosen not for any careful ideological reason, but really just to piss off GPL adherents, and weaken FOSS, pushing for a more OSS approach, where the free is generally as in beer, but rarely as in speech.
Re:The article is incorrect with respect to ext4.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be logical to assume a filesystem developer has an idea on what the workload and hardware will be like _before_ writing his filesystem, then picking a benchmark that suits his ideas on what a filesystem is supposed to do?
No, that would be illogical, unless again they were trying to craft bullshit benchmarks. The developer does not know how I will use the filesystem, and so any such benchmark is not useful to me. I also want to know how well the filesystem will perform if I have to perform some new task on it.