An Update On The Tux3 File-System

[phoronix]

Phoronix: An Update On The Tux3 File-System

Linux file-systems has been a hot topic as of late with the development of the Btrfs and Tux3 file-systems in particular. Tux3 is an open-source versioning file-system being developed by Daniel Phillips since earlier this year that builds upon the never-released Tux2...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjcyNQ

[ethana2]

I'm glad to see that the parts the user never sees are still getting solid amounts of attention. For the future!

[Fixxer_Linux]

I'm glad to see that the parts the user never sees are still getting solid amounts of attention. For the future!

I'm glad too, but what is this filesystem ? I've never heard of that before. What is the advantage versus ext3 ? Why spending time developping a new filesystem and not concentrate on the ext4 filesystem ?

[quintesse]

Why spending time developping a new filesystem and not concentrate on the ext4 filesystem ?

Well that's just how things work, you can't expect all people who are interested in developing filesystems to focus on one project.

First because ext most likely has to maintain some level of backward compatibility, while you can try out whatever wild ideas you have if you start your own project.

And second becuase after a while just putting more and more people on the same project just doesn't translate to better and faster progress, in fact quite the opposite might happen, the project might bog down because of internal problems.

In the end it always works out, if Tux3 doesn't work it will just die without affecting existing projects. If it works really well, more and more people will start to use it and most likely existing projects will try to copy whatever makes it so succesful.

That way either we will still be using ext5-6-7 in the future but with new ideas that were proven to be valuable by other projects like Tux3 or we might actually see a shift towards a completely new filesystem like tux3 instead of sticking with ext. Who knows. Either way the effort made these people is not lost (even if the project fails what they learned is valuable to others).

(NB: I know there are other file systems besides ext, it's just that most distros seem to default to it, but I might be wrong here. Anyway it doesn't invalidate my point)

[Fixxer_Linux]

Well that's just how things work, you can't expect all people who are interested in developing filesystems to focus on one project.

First because ext most likely has to maintain some level of backward compatibility, while you can try out whatever wild ideas you have if you start your own project.

And second becuase after a while just putting more and more people on the same project just doesn't translate to better and faster progress, in fact quite the opposite might happen, the project might bog down because of internal problems.

In the end it always works out, if Tux3 doesn't work it will just die without affecting existing projects. If it works really well, more and more people will start to use it and most likely existing projects will try to copy whatever makes it so succesful.

That way either we will still be using ext5-6-7 in the future but with new ideas that were proven to be valuable by other projects like Tux3 or we might actually see a shift towards a completely new filesystem like tux3 instead of sticking with ext. Who knows. Either way the effort made these people is not lost (even if the project fails what they learned is valuable to others).

(NB: I know there are other file systems besides ext, it's just that most distros seem to default to it, but I might be wrong here. Anyway it doesn't invalidate my point)

You're right. Smart answer. Anyway, that didn't give us what are the advantages of Tux3 against the rest of the world. Or did I missed something ?

[quintesse]

You're right. Smart answer. Anyway, that didn't give us what are the advantages of Tux3 against the rest of the world. Or did I missed something ?

Well that's because I don't know anything about it's advantages

Lot's of information here though: http://shapor.com/tux3/shapor-tux3/doc/design.html

What I understand from rapidly scanning the text is that a journaling/versioning filesystem has a larger overhead (compared to a FS without those features) when making changes, the design of Tux3 tries to minimize that overhead.

[Fixxer_Linux]

Well that's because I don't know anything about it's advantages

Sorry not to have make myself more clear : I wasn't saying you should have given the advantages in your thread !
I was saying that just in case someone else would have read the thread and would have known that in particular.
Thank you very much for having searched the web for a little more information about that, that is very kind from you.