Bcachefs Prepares Last Minute Fixes For Linux 6.7

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Bcachefs Prepares Last Minute Fixes For Linux 6.7

Ahead of Linux 6.7 releasing next weekend, there's another set of Bcachefs file-system driver fixes on their way to the mainline kernel...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Bcachefs-Last-Minute-Linux-6.7

[evert_mouw]

Seems like there still is a lot to fix, but also the speed of fixing seems high. Give it yet another year and Btrfs has real competition. (I don't expect the ZFS userbase to switch, but in-kernel support might convince a few.)

[AndyChow]

These are minor issues. For virtually all home users, bcachefs should destroy btrfs almost right away. Users that use "send" "recv" might need to wait a while. Those functions are on the to-do list, but might take a year or two.

Yeah, I don't see ZFS users migrating their arrays, but if they are innovative, their new ones will be going that way. ZFS can't do write cache (not in a real way), and that's a major issue.

People forget only a couple (maybe 5, I'm getting old) years ago ext4 had a write corruption bug if using deadline-mq. It destroyed data. So bugs happen. But bcachefs is founded on solid clean foundation of bcache. It's also designed logically, unlike btrfs. Structure is very important. With btrfs it's become obvious to everyone that can see: it has the world's best programmers, corporate sponsorship, virtually unlimited resources. So why can't they raid-6 after a decade? It's the structure, it isn't orthogonal. Modifying the internals of one function shouldn't break something else. bcachefs is well designed so far (might not be after they add things, like optimizations or "send" "recv" functions, or other things, but so far it is).

Exciting times.

[spyke]

It is nice to see bcachefs getting used and tested more after its inclusion into linux-next.

[cynic]

With btrfs it's become obvious to everyone that can see: it has the world's best programmers, corporate sponsorship, virtually unlimited resources. So why can't they raid-6 after a decade?

what the hell are you talking about?
do you know how many developer are working on it?

few, very few.

just take a look to the patch authors or subscribe to the developer list and see if you can find all those unlimited resources.

[NobodyXu]

These are minor issues. For virtually all home users, bcachefs should destroy btrfs almost right away. Users that use "send" "recv" might need to wait a while. Those functions are on the to-do list, but might take a year or two.

Given that it's still buggy and has a lot to be done, I doubt that is the case and that will happen.
Not to mention the benchmark posted on this site shows that Bcachefs still lags behind Btrfs in a lot area.

Home users who prefer Btrfs over Ext4 are people who care about data integrity and likely also use snapshot, so them all deserting Btrfs so quickly after Bcachefs is unlikely.

The lack or send/recv is a killer for any home user who use Btrfs for NAS or have to habit of backing up their system, so it's unlikely any serious user of Btrfs will desert Btrfs and switch to Bcachefs until send/recv is ready.

[evert_mouw]

Given that it's still buggy and has a lot to be done, I doubt that is the case and that will happen.
Not to mention the benchmark posted on this site shows that Bcachefs still lags behind Btrfs in a lot area.

Home users who prefer Btrfs over Ext4 are people who care about data security and likely also use snapshot, so them all deserting Btrfs so quickly after Bcachefs is unlikely.

The lack or send/recv is a killer for any home user who use Btrfs for NAS or have to habit of backing up their system, so it's unlikely any serious user of Btrfs will desert Btrfs and switch to Bcachefs until send/recv is ready.

Agreed 100%, but when you mention data security... Bcachefs and ZFS have native encryption, Btrfs is still lacking in that area.

[cynic]

Agreed 100%, but when you mention data security... Bcachefs and ZFS have native encryption, Btrfs is still lacking in that area.

LUKS covers that area for most use cases, anyway.

[EmanuC]

So why can't they raid-6 after a decade? It's the structure, it isn't orthogonal.

Exciting times.

is coming: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Btrfs-Linux-6.7-Features

raid-stripe-tree
New tree for logical file extent mapping where the physical mapping may not match on multiple devices. This is now used in zoned mode to implement RAID0/RAID1* profiles, but can be used in non-zoned mode as well. The support for RAID56 is in development and will eventually fix the problems with the current implementation. This is a backward incompatible feature and has to be enabled at mkfs time.

[evert_mouw]

LUKS covers that area for most use cases, anyway.

Still, it is a missing feature. I don't like workarounds and dependencies like LUKS.