Btrfs May Be The Default File-System In Ubuntu 10.10

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Btrfs May Be The Default File-System In Ubuntu 10.10

Earlier this week we reported that Ubuntu has plans for the Btrfs file-system in 2011 and 2012 by providing support for installing Ubuntu Linux to a Btrfs file-system. This information was based upon documents coming out of the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Brussels, but it turns out that Canonical may actually deploy Btrfs this year. Not only to provide an installation option within the installer for Btrfs, but to make it the default file-system...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODI1Mg

[waucka]

My prediction: btrfs will be an option, but not the default. I would not be surprised if it were the default for 11.04, though.

[Yfrwlf]

Btrfs developers (such as Oracle's Chris Mason) needs to be happy with the idea of Ubuntu picking up Btrfs by default

....what? You mean, it would help if they were confident about the stability of btrfs as it would help the confidence of Canonical devs too, I guess.

[Sadako]

Fantastic idea, 'cause it worked so well with ext4, 'casue there were absolutely no regressions at all with that once it went stable...

By all means, make it an option, but am I the only one who still believes the default filesystem should be something widely used and truely proven reliable (ie ext3)?

[Zhick]

Btrfs will go stable in 2.6.35? Nice. Looks like 2.6.35 will be a really sweet release, with that and all the radeon-powermanagement stuff.

[Yfrwlf]

Btrfs will go stable in 2.6.35? Nice. Looks like 2.6.35 will be a really sweet release, with that and all the radeon-powermanagement stuff.

Weeeeeeeew, maybe the dual fans on my ATI 4850 X2 won't be stuck on high anymore then! =D

[Xake]

....what? You mean, it would help if they were confident about the stability of btrfs as it would help the confidence of Canonical devs too, I guess.

He probably means that upstream feels ok with the thought about having btrfs default in a mainstrea distribution with everything wrt the testing/bugreporting/bashing the filesystem would get by that.

[cynyr]

Fantastic idea, 'cause it worked so well with ext4, 'casue there were absolutely no regressions at all with that once it went stable...

By all means, make it an option, but am I the only one who still believes the default filesystem should be something widely used and truely proven reliable (ie ext3)?

I don't know about that, as a desktop user with /, /home and my media storage all on EXT4 ov LVM, i haven't noticed any speed change(i know the bench marks don't lie). The thing is that most of the speed regressions were made to satisfy apps that were not ensuring data on disk was the way they wanted. I'm not sure that I care much what Ubuntu sets as the default as long as it doesn't eat data. That said I don't run Ubuntu, every time i try to install it on something it fails. I've tried my p4 class AMD, my exotic laptop from 2003, and VMs. My main desktop runs gentoo just fine and with 100% hardware support.

Short response, as long as it stays at least as fast as EXT3, and doesn't eat data, who cares?

[droidhacker]

I don't know about that, as a desktop user with /, /home and my media storage all on EXT4 ov LVM, i haven't noticed any speed change(i know the bench marks don't lie). The thing is that most of the speed regressions were made to satisfy apps that were not ensuring data on disk was the way they wanted. I'm not sure that I care much what Ubuntu sets as the default as long as it doesn't eat data. That said I don't run Ubuntu, every time i try to install it on something it fails. I've tried my p4 class AMD, my exotic laptop from 2003, and VMs. My main desktop runs gentoo just fine and with 100% hardware support.

Short response, as long as it stays at least as fast as EXT3, and doesn't eat data, who cares?

btrfs has some exotic features that are not and will never be part of the ext filesystem. So forgetting entirely about overall performance and where each has its strengths and weaknesses, btrfs is an amazing looking piece of work -- transactions, snapshots, rollbacks, load distribution, etc.

[cynyr]

btrfs has some exotic features that are not and will never be part of the ext filesystem. So forgetting entirely about overall performance and where each has its strengths and weaknesses, btrfs is an amazing looking piece of work -- transactions, snapshots, rollbacks, load distribution, etc.

and those are the features that I use to pick a FS. the last time in installed(around a year ago), my choices were ResierFS3, or EXT4. I went with EXT4, as it was "stable" and it had some features(online resizing) that i wanted. I really like the look of BTRFS's features, although I question how useful some of them will be for the "mainstream" desktop/laptop. Others will be very nice additions, making things like backup simple and quick(as quick as moving 2TB of data gets).

I was mostly pointing out that even if a FS slows down during it's life, that as long as it is still as fast or faster that older systems 99% of the time it would seem to be a win.