File Systems question

[jae]

So I believe the only way I am gonna learn linux is if I delete my XP partition .. its so easy to say, "this is easier in Windows XP" and boot into Windows.

I was about to setup my Ubuntu install then I read using different filesystems in linux causes seek slowdowns/issues. I was going to format the OS harddrive in jfs. The MP3s and documents hard drive in 2 partitions; the mp3 in ReiserFS, the documents in ext3. The last hard drive was for movies and wouldve been in XFS.

Does this sound OK?

 

[silverpig]

There's no need to mix them like that. I'd suggest you just pick one and go with it. I'd also recommend to avoid reiserfs. Chances are you'll not have any problems with it, but if you ever do, you'll have MAJOR problems.

ext3 is safe, but kind of slow

I like jfs and use it on my stuff

Most others here like xfs and would recommend that

So pick what you like, but I'd say you should pick one and go with it.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Lol, sure you can do that. I've run plenty of different file systems and haven't noticed too much of a difference between them so I just stick with ext3 as its the easiest to manage imho. I've never lost data to ext3 or jfs but I have lost my partition a few times to reiserfs.. I hope its gotten better in that regard.

 

[Kakumba]

ext3 ftw. Simply put, use ext3, and edit your /etc/fstab to use relatime option to speed things up. ext3 has saved many peoples asses many a time, and is pretty much the "default linux FS", with a long history of full, rock solid kernel support.

If you absolutely need speed, and don't care so much about data safety, then use a non-journalled FS. as has been said, don't bother with reiserfs, with the conviction yesterday, things are only gonna get worse from a support perspective.

 

[degibson]

Don't try anything too exotic if you're wanting to give Linux a legitimate shot. Stick with Ext3 for everything, and you'll do just fine.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: degibson
Don't try anything too exotic if you're wanting to give Linux a legitimate shot. Stick with Ext3 for everything, and you'll do just fine.

For a beginner, I agree with this. Just stick with ext3 to begin with.

I personally use ext3 when data integrity is important, and xfs when speed is more important.

Originally posted by: Kakumba
ext3 ftw. Simply put, use ext3, and edit your /etc/fstab to use relatime option to speed things up.

I'm pretty sure that relatime is only supported in the latest kernels. He could go with 'noatime' in case the distro he is using does not yet support relatime (Ubuntu 8.04 supports it and uses it by default), however this is another situation where I would say a new linux user should probably not touch the fstab file by hand unless absolutely necessary.

 

[Net]

if you really want to learn linux install slackware

 

[Kakumba]

slackware is great to really learn the workings, but to just start out, its generally too hard, unless the new user has someone on hand who can help....

 

[Khyron320]

Originally posted by: net
if you really want to learn linux install slackware

What makes slackware so much better to learn on? because i have heard this multiple times.

 

[Nothinman]

What makes slackware so much better to learn on? because i have heard this multiple times.

Because it does less for you. The package management is pretty slim so you end up compiling a lot of things from source. While that's not a bad thing to understand it's not terribly useful any more, most distributions have everything already packaged up for you.

If you really want to learn how Linux works you should look at LFS. If you want to learn how to use Linux you should just pick a distro and stick with it.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: silverpig
There's no need to mix them like that. I'd suggest you just pick one and go with it. I'd also recommend to avoid reiserfs. Chances are you'll not have any problems with it, but if you ever do, you'll have MAJOR problems.

ext3 is safe, but kind of slow

I like jfs and use it on my stuff

Most others here like xfs and would recommend that

So pick what you like, but I'd say you should pick one and go with it.

To add to this:
Ext3 is very safe, but uses the most space and is generally the slowest. By default, it also forces an fsck every so many boots.

JFS and XFS are both good, with JFS being optimized for small files and XFS for large. (XFS is typically used on media partitions)

ReiserFS is also optimized for small files and typically uses the least amount of space. It also has the fastest fsck. However, due to a lack of development, ReiserFS has fallen behind in speed. There are unofficial branches to Reiser that keep up, but the standard reiserfs is only good if you want to conserve space really. (fast fscks are nice, but only ext3 forces fscks and reiser provides less robust tools to handle major issues)

Reiser4, ZFS, and ext4 are all promising, but have problems.
ZFS is the furthest along in development...but not on Linux where its proprietary nature has hurt its development.
Reiser4 can be very fast and conserve a lot of space at the same time (can be several times better on both with the right plugins, mainly the one that gzips all file transactions) and can never fragment, but has some crashing issues. With the conviction of Hans Reiser, very unlikely this will be worth switching to anytime soon.
Ext4 still has some crash issues but is crazy fast and secure. Likely to be the first one of the 3 next gen file systems to reach acceptance, unless ZFS is open sourced.

 

[Nothinman]

ZFS is the furthest along in development...but not on Linux where its proprietary nature has hurt its development.

It will never be included in Linux because of the license, not anything to do with the development.

Reiser4 can be very fast and conserve a lot of space at the same time (can be several times better on both with the right plugins, mainly the one that gzips all file transactions) and can never fragment, but has some crashing issues. With the conviction of Hans Reiser, very unlikely this will be worth switching to anytime soon.

Reiser4 fragments, I believe there was talk of a background defrag plugin but there's no way it can not fragment without always copying around a lot of data and causing a lot of extra I/O.

Ext4 still has some crash issues but is crazy fast and secure. Likely to be the first one of the 3 next gen file systems to reach acceptance, unless ZFS is open sourced.

ZFS is open source it's just that the CDDL isn't compatible with the GPL so they can never be distributed together.

 

[Spyder22]

Like everyone has said, ext3 and reiserfs are very stable and provide solid performance. If you're feeling adventurous, I would check out reiser4. It has become pretty stable and the compression plugins are just amazing. Just as an example my portage partition on my Gentoo install shrunk from 600mb to 90mb by using the gzip plugin!

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Spyder22
Like everyone has said, ext3 and reiserfs are very stable and provide solid performance. If you're feeling adventurous, I would check out reiser4. It has become pretty stable and the compression plugins are just amazing. Just as an example my portage partition on my Gentoo install shrunk from 600mb to 90mb by using the gzip plugin!

reiserfs is about as stable as the other filesystems, true, but unlike the others, when something goes wrong with reiserfs your entire partition's worth of data is hosed.

 

[Nothinman]

Like everyone has said, ext3 and reiserfs are very stable and provide solid performance. If you're feeling adventurous, I would check out reiser4. It has become pretty stable and the compression plugins are just amazing. Just as an example my portage partition on my Gentoo install shrunk from 600mb to 90mb by using the gzip plugin!

I wouldn't put reiserfs in the same stability category as any other filesystem. Every time I've used it I've ended up performing some form of data recovery or repair in order to get my system working again. And now with the verdict of guilty being given in the Hans Reiser case I wouldn't put too much faith in reiser4's future right now.

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I wouldn't put reiserfs in the same stability category as any other filesystem. Every time I've used it I've ended up performing some form of data recovery or repair in order to get my system working again. And now with the verdict of guilty being given in the Hans Reiser case I wouldn't put too much faith in reiser4's future right now.

I've never had any problems with Reiser3 or 4. However, because of the second part of you statement, I would avoid it. From what I have read ext4 is supposed to be pretty good, in a little while it will be released. So my recommendation would be ext3 then 4. Solid support, and decent performance. You can't ask for much more.

 

[Fallen Kell]

ZFS is really the way to go. I don't know how well it has been integrated into linux, but I have used it many times under Solaris, and I will say this is leaps and bouts above and beyond everything else. It is fast, efficient, has support for just about every feature you could ask for (i.e. RAID (options equivalent to levels 0, 1, 5), JBOD, concatenation, logging, quotas, growing, add disks, spare disks, etc.).

Basically, if it is fully supported for boot disks, well, put all your hard drives into a zfs pool, and simply make quota's for your different "partitions", like "/", "/var", etc. You might need to have a swap disk, though. If you see you need more space under something, up it's quota. When you run out of total space, add a new disk into the pool, and then you just up the quota's on the different areas that need more space. It couldn't be simpler.

 

[Nothinman]

I've never had any problems with Reiser3 or 4.

I've never tried reiser4 but I've never had an experience with reiser3 end well, I can come up with a few anecdotes if you'd like. =)

ZFS is really the way to go.

If you're running Solaris sure, but not on Linux. As long as the license stays CDDL ZFS will only be usable via FUSE. That's not to say that FUSE is bad but as long as ZFS isn't maintained with the Linux kernel it'll be a second class citizen compared to filesystems like ext3, XFS, etc.

It is fast, efficient, has support for just about every feature you could ask for (i.e. RAID (options equivalent to levels 0, 1, 5), JBOD, concatenation, logging, quotas, growing, add disks, spare disks, etc.).

Maybe I'm confused but I enjoy the fact that all of those features are done in a separate layer and completely separate from my filesystem. I like the fact that my RAID is separate from my LVM and my filesystem. Some things like quotas, growing, etc have to be tied to the filesystem in order to work well but RAID and volume management don't fit into that category.