Native ZFS Is Coming To Linux Next Month

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Native ZFS Is Coming To Linux Next Month

Prior to the emergence of Btrfs as a viable next-generation Linux file-system, Sun's ZFS file-system was sought after for Linux due to its advanced feature-set and capabilities compared to EXT3 and other open-source file-systems at the time. While ZFS support has worked its way into OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and other operating systems, ZFS had not been ported to Linux as its source-code is distributed under the CDDL license, which is incompatible with the GNU GPL barring it from integration into the mainline Linux kernel. Next month, however, a working ZFS module for the Linux kernel without a dependence on FUSE will be publicly released.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=15232

[edogawaconan]

I'd be interested in seeing comparison between ext4/LVM-RAID5 with ZFS/RAIDZ. ZFS is not meant to be used on single disk as most of its features are only useful in multiple-disks setup.

[RealNC]

Is this for Linux? Or only for Fedora and Ubuntu? The article's title says "Linux", but the article itself says building from source is for Ubuntu?

[fackamato]

Is this for Linux? Or only for Fedora and Ubuntu? The article's title says "Linux", but the article itself says building from source is for Ubuntu?

Did you read the article? If there is source code that compiles against the Linux kernel (Ubuntu case), then it's for Linux.

[RealNC]

I did read the article. That's why I asked; the article says:

"there will be RPMs for Fedora 12 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta 2. Installing ZFS on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be supported, but you will need to build the kernel module from source"

I don't know about you, but to me this looks like only Red Hat, Fedora and Ubuntu are supported.

[fackamato]

I did read the article. That's why I asked; the article says:

"there will be RPMs for Fedora 12 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta 2. Installing ZFS on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be supported, but you will need to build the kernel module from source"

I don't know about you, but to me this looks like only Red Hat, Fedora and Ubuntu are supported.

Well, supported is irrelevent, isn't it? It's free

So the source code is there, build it, and use ZFS in $_dist_of_choice like in the distros you mentioned.

[RealNC]

Well, supported is irrelevent, isn't it? It's free

So the source code is there, build it, and use ZFS in $_dist_of_choice like in the distros you mentioned.

My question resolves around whether this is possible at all.

[fackamato]

My question resolves around whether this is possible at all.

I don't see why not? If you have the source code, and you know it's supported for Ubuntu 10.04, then why shouldn't it work with your own kernel as long as it's not too far from Ubuntu's version number?

Just saying.

[RealNC]

If they're targeting Red Hat and Ubuntu, then this implies that they use non-kernel stuff. Otherwise, they would simply target the upstream kernel and be distro-agnostic, which is the easiest approach.

[smitty3268]

If they're targeting Red Hat and Ubuntu, then this implies that they use non-kernel stuff. Otherwise, they would simply target the upstream kernel and be distro-agnostic, which is the easiest approach.

So you think there's some non-kernel stuff in Fedora 12, RHEL 6 beta 2, and Ubuntu 10.04 that somehow can't be made to work on any other distros?

Sounds like they're just targeting easy package management integration into those specific distros, and the code itself probably does target the upstream kernel.