Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
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Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Didn't think it would be Fedora joining openSUSE...
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
--I remember Wendell from Level1techs ( probably closer to back when he was with Tek Syndicate many suns ago) talking about xfs but more coherently..BTRFS and how it's superior to EXT4, but I don't recall any details. So far the only thing I understand about BTRFS vs EXT4 is that BTRFS supports file, volume, and drive sizes much larger than EXT4, but I don't see in a close enough part of my lifetime needing BTRFS anytime soon since my max file sizes end up being not even 45 GBs...and that's a fully loaded cgi bluray movie ...before handbrake-ing it. Copy-on-write, which is a part of BTRFS, is basically greek to me unfortunately --ajgringo619 wrote: ⤴Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:40 pm Didn't think it would be Fedora joining openSUSE...
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
For the average user, EXT4 works just fine. My main reason for using BTRFS is its nearly-instantaneous snapshots, which Timeshift works very well with. It's not as mature as EXT3/4, but it's definitely come a long way.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Do you use it for the root fs?ajgringo619 wrote: ⤴Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:54 pm For the average user, EXT4 works just fine. My main reason for using BTRFS is its nearly-instantaneous snapshots, which Timeshift works very well with. It's not as mature as EXT3/4, but it's definitely come a long way.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Stability is to me always pretty high on the priority list. When it comes to such things as file systems, it is paramount.
Not saying anything against BTRFS, but I prefer the generational maturation and stability of EXT.
Not saying anything against BTRFS, but I prefer the generational maturation and stability of EXT.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Agreed. I just thought that the Mint devs, especially since they started pushing Timeshift, would have considered it, at least for root; who knows - maybe they did.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
I know that Pjotr had originally cautioned against using BTRFS in his article on optimizing ones LM or Ubuntu installation for SSD on the basis that it caused too many writes. IIRC, he's since said it may be acceptable. However, I would prefer him to comment because he knows far more about this matter than I.ajgringo619 wrote: ⤴Thu Oct 01, 2020 9:11 pmAgreed. I just thought that the Mint devs, especially since they started pushing Timeshift, would have considered it, at least for root; who knows - maybe they did.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
It surprises me more that it's taken so long for Fedora to switch to btrfs as the default for at least root. Presumably the folks at Red Hat want Fedora users to act as guinea pigs so they can iron out any issues before switching RHEL to the FS as well. Even though Fedora is not officially a Red Hat project and has not been for many years now they still have some say as to how it's run and provide limited Personnel work hours to the Fedora Project.
It has been an option for quite some time via manual partitioning though. If you want to find out just how long, search the Fedora Dungeon for posts by stevea. He wrote some guides to using it with Fedora 20 if I recall correctly.
I'm not convinced by btrfs though for home users, it's overly complicated for very little gain and requires some maintenance by the end user from time to time whereas Ext4 can be left alone. I have tried living with it on one machine for 6 months via OpenSUSE default install. When the excrement did hit the fan I couldn't actually get the snapshot to restore despite following instructions to the letter.
Sure Timeshift works with the btrfs snapshot feature but so what? If the storage medium packs up, then you lose your snapshots too just like any other form of internal file system backup. To that end it's no better than Windows System Restore which should also not be relied on alone.
I'll stick with Ext4 and backing up to an external device using rsync.
As for why Ubuntu and therefore Mint have not adopted it yet:
Is btrfs stable? - https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php ... _stable.3F
It has been an option for quite some time via manual partitioning though. If you want to find out just how long, search the Fedora Dungeon for posts by stevea. He wrote some guides to using it with Fedora 20 if I recall correctly.
I'm not convinced by btrfs though for home users, it's overly complicated for very little gain and requires some maintenance by the end user from time to time whereas Ext4 can be left alone. I have tried living with it on one machine for 6 months via OpenSUSE default install. When the excrement did hit the fan I couldn't actually get the snapshot to restore despite following instructions to the letter.
Sure Timeshift works with the btrfs snapshot feature but so what? If the storage medium packs up, then you lose your snapshots too just like any other form of internal file system backup. To that end it's no better than Windows System Restore which should also not be relied on alone.
I'll stick with Ext4 and backing up to an external device using rsync.
As for why Ubuntu and therefore Mint have not adopted it yet:
Is btrfs stable? - https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php ... _stable.3F
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Indeed. Thanks, but no, thanks.antikythera wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 4:14 am As for why Ubuntu and therefore Mint have not adopted it yet:
Is btrfs stable? - https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php ... _stable.3F
BTRFS is probably not as mature as EXT4 yet, and also it might (under certain circumstances) cause more write actions than EXT4 does. Which you may want to avoid on SSD's.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Wish I knew when this paragraph was written; wikis are notorious for leaving out this simple piece of information.antikythera wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 4:14 am Is btrfs stable? - https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php ... _stable.3F
Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Timeshift is supposed to be only a system restore utility, not for complete disaster relief. I think this is one of Timeshift's biggest misconceptions - that it's designed to recover from a catastrophic hardware failure. While it might be able to do that, that's not its main purpose.antikythera wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 4:14 am Sure Timeshift works with the btrfs snapshot feature but so what? If the storage medium packs up, then you lose your snapshots too just like any other form of internal file system backup. To that end it's no better than Windows System Restore which should also not be relied on alone.
Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Ineresting then that Red Hat ... Fedora users are merely Red Hat beta testers whether they know it or not ... only seems nto support ext3:
https://access.redhat.com/documentation ... -part-mkfs
And I think they only supported ext2 until fairly recently.
https://access.redhat.com/documentation ... -part-mkfs
And I think they only supported ext2 until fairly recently.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Agreed on Fedora users, but your RHEL link is referencing a really old version (on v8 now).Hoser Rob wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:29 am Ineresting then that Red Hat ... Fedora users are merely Red Hat beta testers whether they know it or not ... only seems nto support ext3:
https://access.redhat.com/documentation ... -part-mkfs
And I think they only supported ext2 until fairly recently.
After further investigation, RHEL 8.2 uses XFS as the default filesystem!
Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Well it maybe has purpose on server systems, but, for desktop users, BTRFS = bloated totally redundant file system, which makes Your OS main purpose to create backups, and backups of backups, and so on ...
It remainds me of ZFS ...
It remainds me of ZFS ...
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
Well put, sir!
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
I'm under no illusions that is the main purpose of Timeshift but it does work quite well for that purpose tooajgringo619 wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:07 amTimeshift is supposed to be only a system restore utility, not for complete disaster relief. I think this is one of Timeshift's biggest misconceptions - that it's designed to recover from a catastrophic hardware failure. While it might be able to do that, that's not its main purpose.antikythera wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 02, 2020 4:14 am Sure Timeshift works with the btrfs snapshot feature but so what? If the storage medium packs up, then you lose your snapshots too just like any other form of internal file system backup. To that end it's no better than Windows System Restore which should also not be relied on alone.
One advantage btrfs does have are the size of the snapshots compared to rsync. Regardless I still wouldn't keep any snapshots on a single drive alone because even snapshots get corrupted. I never have and never will.
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Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
but you need a backup of the backup of the backup of the backup.
Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
No, I do not.
I only need 1, manually created. (B4 any upd/upgr)
I only need 1, manually created. (B4 any upd/upgr)
Re: Another Major Distro Chooses BTRFS
I think I will stick with ext4 until the performance issues get resolved. Plenty of people are enjoying BTRFS but I am taking a conservative approach for now.