Live data from Hacker News

Is it time to remove reiserfs?

lkml.org

231–240 of 260 posts

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why erase history? It happened, and it's interesting.

Because companies may not want to be involved in a product called "PersonWhoIsConvictedWithMurder-FS". Let history be. But rename the project to something like ChameleonFS. Hans Reiser's mentions will still be in the git history.

Companies have no shame. As long as the thing increases profit, they will use it.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#232
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate that ReiserFS is named after Hans Reiser; other people were working on it too (well before the murder, see e.g. [1] for a crude overview), and there's nothing stopping anyone from maintaining and developing it, no matter what Hans Reiser did. Yet in large part due to the name, it's strongly linked to him :-/ If Theodore Ts'o would have been convicted of murder the ext* filesystems probably would have…

I feel like there's a small tautology here- who is most likely to name the software package after themselves? A narcissist, of course, and narcissism is a component of sociopathy.

So you also think Linus Torvalds is a narcissist ? And every people who name their project or company after their names are potential sociopaths ? What about all scientists who gave their names to the effects or law of physics (or math formulas) they discovered... ?

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#233
Can we just swap it for reiser4/5? It's only got a few people working on it but the FS is faster, has a plugin system for compression and other features, and is all-around just better. Call it shiskinfs if the name is problematic.

If paragon can get their cribbed together ntfs driver included in mainline then why can't reiser4 get merged?

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#234
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great for small files, but it's also got some really nasty little corner cases. You do not store ReiserFS filesystem images on ReiserFS filesystems without encryption, or the next time you run fsck, you'll end up with the two filesystems oddly merged into something entirely useless. I'm not sure if that's been fixed, I got a bit tired of the exotica for general daily driver systems, and ext3/ext4 cover my needs…

From the same standpoint, btrfs is not sane either. You cannot dd it to a different block device, even when unmounted. When the kernel sees two btrfs filesystems with the same UUID on two different block devices, it thinks they are one filesystem, and corrupts both.

The difference is that you can easily edit the UUID of a btrfs filesystem with `btrfstune -U` immediately after making the copy so the filesystems are unique again. You need to do this anyway if you have mount rules based on the UUID, regardless of the filesystem type, or you run the risk of mounting the wrong device. It is also possible to tell btrfs which devices make up a particular filesystem with the device= mount option, which ought to bypass the default grouping based on the UUID.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#235
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you really need to have a reason to use ext3/4. I stick to xfs for daily stuff and btrfs if I want any sort of extra functionality. It's super stable in basic configs. For example, I have a /data drive formated xfs, then I mount a /backup formated btrfs, rsync the 2, take a btrfs snapshot, and unmount /backup.

Lack of support for shrinking in XFS is one reason that regularly comes up for me

What use case regularly shrinks file systems? Not doubting, curious!

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the same standpoint, btrfs is not sane either. You cannot dd it to a different block device, even when unmounted. When the kernel sees two btrfs filesystems with the same UUID on two different block devices, it thinks they are one filesystem, and corrupts both.

The difference is that you can easily edit the UUID of a btrfs filesystem with `btrfstune -U` immediately after making the copy so the filesystems are unique again. You need to do this anyway if you have mount rules based on the UUID, regardless of the filesystem type, or you run the risk of mounting the wrong device. It is also possible to tell btrfs which devices make up a particular filesystem with the device= mou…

Can one wait indefinitely before running `btrfstune -U`? The "immediately" in your comment makes it sound like a racy/flaky workaround, assuming you are referring to immediacy in time.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#237
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that you can easily edit the UUID of a btrfs filesystem with `btrfstune -U` immediately after making the copy so the filesystems are unique again. You need to do this anyway if you have mount rules based on the UUID, regardless of the filesystem type, or you run the risk of mounting the wrong device. It is also possible to tell btrfs which devices make up a particular filesystem with the device= mou…

Can one wait indefinitely before running `btrfstune -U`? The "immediately" in your comment makes it sound like a racy/flaky workaround, assuming you are referring to immediacy in time.

You can wait until just before the next time the device is scanned for filesystems, or perhaps when the next btrfs filesystem is mounted. Beyond that it will start to cause problems.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#238
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate that ReiserFS is named after Hans Reiser; other people were working on it too (well before the murder, see e.g. [1] for a crude overview), and there's nothing stopping anyone from maintaining and developing it, no matter what Hans Reiser did. Yet in large part due to the name, it's strongly linked to him :-/ If Theodore Ts'o would have been convicted of murder the ext* filesystems probably would have…

I feel like there's a small tautology here- who is most likely to name the software package after themselves? A narcissist, of course, and narcissism is a component of sociopathy.

That seems like overthinking things. I've named things after myself (and also other people), and I'm neither a narcissist nor sociopath. It just sounded nice.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#239
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you really need to have a reason to use ext3/4. I stick to xfs for daily stuff and btrfs if I want any sort of extra functionality. It's super stable in basic configs. For example, I have a /data drive formated xfs, then I mount a /backup formated btrfs, rsync the 2, take a btrfs snapshot, and unmount /backup.

> For example, I have a /data drive formated xfs, then I mount a /backup formated btrfs, rsync the 2, take a btrfs snapshot, and unmount /backup. I also unmount the backup drive(s) when not in use, but I'm just cp'ing the important directories from one ext4 filesystem to another. I'd consider btrfs or xfs for general use, I'd love to know why you choose xfs for everyday use. Sure, it's better than ext4, but why not b…

Mostly legacy. I should convert it.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#240
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the only real problems are edge cases. I use it all the time.

Edge cases like Raid5/6 which had the write hole issue approximately a decade after btrfs was released. At some point you say "This filesystem has lost so much of my data that I will never return to it."

That's pretty old news. It's been problem free for a long time and it's very well documented where you might have issues.
Post reply on HN