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Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

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Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#21

Post by Daviey »

ntkachov wrote: post #10
JonnieCache wrote: post #3

Hopefully they'll do a better job than last time they tried this: the galaxy S had a custom filesystem called RFS, in reality it was just fat32 with crappy journaling bolted on. It totally crippled the phone, causing a lengthly block every time a file was closed. It would also fight with the chips own wear levelling algorithms. It sucked. If you owned that phone and thought it sucked, with loads of UI lag, it was bec…

I owned that phone, it did suck. The only good thing about that phone (besides the screen) is that it was nearly unbreakable and had a great custom Rom scene. Almost all of the roms replaced the file system.

And yet after a year, normal usage cracked the screen (weak point surround the front button.)

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#22

Post by sturadnidge »

cokernel_hacker wrote: post #18
nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, YAFFS is not a journaled filesystem, and is really just a simple filesystem comparable in feature set to FAT32. F2FS looks like it's trying to bring the features of EXT3 to a flash-friendly implementation.

YAFFS is a log-structured filesystem, just like F2FS. Log-structuring gives you a data organization protocol. This protocol gives you an implicit crash-recovery story, there is no need for additional journaling on top of it. Journalling is used when some blocks on the disk are scheduled to be overwritten. Instead, the blocks are written in a separate location (the so-called journal). At a later point in time, the dat…

Possibly the most succinct explanation of log-structured vs journaling filesystems I have ever read.

Thankyou.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#23

Post by lmm »

trotsky wrote: post #16
jackowayed wrote: post #11

Can anyone explain why a log-structured file system is a good fit for flash? It seems that a lot of the benefits of an LFS are that it reduces disk seeks.

That article is pretty light on the details, but one thing to note is that most sd card storage is relatively poor at random seeks, having been optimized for media type usage.

The cost of random seeks is still going to be lower than on hard drives, which is what most current filesystems were optimized for.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#24

Post by __alexs »

zobzu wrote: post #8
randallu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a very reasonable thing to say. Samsung-LSI (which is the "Samsung" in question here) consistently makes better BSPs than, say, TI or nvidia (with their big WinCE-like layer inside the kernel). Samsung Mobile has a reputation for making poor quality Android UIs (though they also have a few other OS projects going on; the EFL one and something else). Also, Samsung-LSI generally makes better SoCs t…

You must not have looked at samsung's source for their recent flagship phones.

Samsung-LSI is part of Samsung's semiconductor division, it has little to do with the their consumer electronics section.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#25

Post by zurn »

jackowayed wrote: post #11

Can anyone explain why a log-structured file system is a good fit for flash? It seems that a lot of the benefits of an LFS are that it reduces disk seeks.

LFS recudes seeks on writes but requires more seeks on reads. This was bad for general purpouse use so they didn't become popular with rotating media.

It's a perfect fit for flash, because there read seeks are (almost) free, and the overwrite-less, sequential writes are a perfect fit. Flash only supports read, erase, and write-on-erased operations, the exact set that LFS uses.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#26

Post by richworks »

pserwylo wrote: post #13
ntkachov wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I owned that phone, it did suck. The only good thing about that phone (besides the screen) is that it was nearly unbreakable and had a great custom Rom scene. Almost all of the roms replaced the file system.

And it still has a lot of custom rom support. I'm writing from my Galaxy S with CM10 (Jellybean) now. Naturally, it uses Ext (3?) partitions, and resizes the cache partition so I can download apps larger than 30mb from the play store (another interesting file system choice from Samsung).

I need to ask, what HN app are you using?

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#27

Post by pserwylo »

richworks wrote: post #26
pserwylo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it still has a lot of custom rom support. I'm writing from my Galaxy S with CM10 (Jellybean) now. Naturally, it uses Ext (3?) partitions, and resizes the cache partition so I can download apps larger than 30mb from the play store (another interesting file system choice from Samsung).

I need to ask, what HN app are you using?

Just the https://news.ycombinator.com website.

I use the Opera labs browser. Opera, because despite some parts I don't like, it's the best I've seen at reflowing text to fit the screen (perfect for HN). The labs version, because it supports extensions, and it is the only way I can get something like Ghostery to block trackers while I'm browsing on the phone.

Do you have a particular HN app you recommend?

I was using http://ihackernews.com for a while, because of its mobile-friendly HTML, but it doesn't really offer anything in addition to regular HN with a good browser. Double tapping zooms to a good size, reflows the text, and snaps the scrolling to the new width, so most sites just feel like a "mobile app" anyhow.

Cheers.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#28

Post by ajtaylor »

JonnieCache wrote: post #3

Hopefully they'll do a better job than last time they tried this: the galaxy S had a custom filesystem called RFS, in reality it was just fat32 with crappy journaling bolted on. It totally crippled the phone, causing a lengthly block every time a file was closed. It would also fight with the chips own wear levelling algorithms. It sucked. If you owned that phone and thought it sucked, with loads of UI lag, it was bec…

You beat me to it! The Galaxy S was an ok phone, as it came stock. OK that is, if you liked waiting - a lot! But once I flashed a custom firmware onto it, I would have sworn I had a brand new phone! Then I read more about RFS, which only made me more angry at Samsung for crippling a great phone. Luckily my Galaxy S2 exhibits no such symptoms and is a great phone. I'm looking forward to upgrading to the S3 now.

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#29

Post by im3w1l »

cokernel_hacker wrote: post #18
nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, YAFFS is not a journaled filesystem, and is really just a simple filesystem comparable in feature set to FAT32. F2FS looks like it's trying to bring the features of EXT3 to a flash-friendly implementation.

YAFFS is a log-structured filesystem, just like F2FS. Log-structuring gives you a data organization protocol. This protocol gives you an implicit crash-recovery story, there is no need for additional journaling on top of it. Journalling is used when some blocks on the disk are scheduled to be overwritten. Instead, the blocks are written in a separate location (the so-called journal). At a later point in time, the dat…

How large percentage of the storage space can you use before you enter garbage collection hell?

Re: Samsung Creates New File System F2FS For Linux, Good News For Android

#30

Post by nkerkin »

Daviey wrote: post #21
ntkachov wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I owned that phone, it did suck. The only good thing about that phone (besides the screen) is that it was nearly unbreakable and had a great custom Rom scene. Almost all of the roms replaced the file system.

And yet after a year, normal usage cracked the screen (weak point surround the front button.)

YMMV? Mine has been used and abused every day for over 2 years :S
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