ZFS On Linux Runs Into A Snag With Linux 5.0

While the Linux 5.0 kernel has a lot of enticing features and improvements, if you rely upon ZFS On Linux (ZOL) you will probably want to hold off on trying the Linux 5.0 release candidates at this time.

ZFS On Linux currently fails to build against the Linux 5.0 kernel sources. This isn't due to a trivial API change but rather the 5.0 kernel is no longer exporting the __kernel_fpu_begin and __kernel_fpu_end symbols, which the ZOL kernel module relies upon as part of the file-system's checksums.

There isn't a simple solution for this immediately, especially one that doesn't involve using GPL symbols, due to license compatibility issues with the out-of-tree ZOL kernel code. But surely with time and new code a solution can come about as it doesn't look like the upstream kernel developers are interested in any maneuvering to help out ZOL specifically (or rarely out-of-tree modules for that matter).

Linus Torvalds' second in command, Greg KH, had to say the following about his views about ZFS On Linux with the current issue at hand:

My tolerance for ZFS is pretty non-existant. Sun explicitly did not want their code to work on Linux, so why would we do extra work to get their code to work properly?

The ZFS On Linux + Linux 5.0 kernel issue can be tracked via this GitHub ticket.