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Is it time to remove reiserfs?

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Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#251

Post by MrDOS »

cestith wrote: post #212
MrDOS wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK it's not so bad in single-device use-cases. I think most of the more recent failures I've heard about have all had to do with Btrfs RAID. The prevailing wisdom still seems to be that if you want to use RAID, use an md soft-RAID device or LVM under your single-device Btrfs filesystem.

RAID, especially 5 or 6 was my main concern, yes. If I'm using hardware RAID or a soft RAID under the FS, much of the promised benefit of btrfs is gone anyway. I can add to storage pools with ZFS or expand an LVM set, too, but what does using btrfs on top of anything buy me that ZFS, bcachefs, or something like f2fs does not?

> but what does using btrfs on top of anything buy me that ZFS, bcachefs, or something like f2fs does not?

Well, inclusion in mainline kernels is the big one over ZFS and bcachefs, I guess.

I haven't seen F2FS before, so I'm commenting on the basis of 30 seconds of Googling, here, but it doesn't look like it supports either copy-on-write or snapshots, which are the big selling points I've heard for continuing to use Btrfs on top of a device manager.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#252

Post by wink »

stevekemp wrote: post #99
Frost1x wrote: post #25

ReiserFS is a conversational litmus test I like to casually and indirectly name drop in technical interview discussions surrounding the world of Linux, file systems, and storage to fish and see if someone actually had been actively working in the domain circa 2000ish when there was a lot of hype and criticism bubbling surrounding performance with large sets of small files. Admittedly, it's not a great signal if the c…

I can almost see that being useful, but at the same time I'd be more curious about the current knowledge somebody possessed than stuff from back in the day. It's also a bit of an (accidental?) age-test. It's like asking about Pamela Jones, from Groklaw, and her red dress. Fun trivia, but it tells you nothing about a person's current technical skills (or even their past ones!), just their ability to remember random na…

Absolutely. If you asked me to name current and historical filesystems on Linux I would 100% be able to name reiserfs - but features? Nope, not a single one. I was kinda surprised by the sibling comments that it has been THAT long. When it was actively in the news it was still unstable but promising. Then at some point it hadn't been mentioned anymore for a while and then we had ext4 and xfs and btrfs. So even as a linux user (and admin) I don't think it's anything anyone must know.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#253

Post by user-the-name »

pnutjam wrote: post #87
api wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people seem to turn up their nose at btrfs. Is there a reason for that? Was it perhaps launched before it was really ready and people still remember early versions?

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

I really do not want to use a file system that has problems at edge cases. A file system needs to be incredibly stable.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#254

Post by kzrdude »

hulitu wrote: post #230
kzrdude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you made this point: The only way for this filesystem to survive, is to rename it. It's the only way it will continue to have users.

If you chose what filesystem you use based on the name you have a big problem.

I'm serious. Are you going to fix bugs in that filesystem? Put on your resume that your main Linux contribution is as a diligent maintainer of that filesystem? You can't do that, because of the name. No development and maintenance, and it's dead.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#255

Post by blablabla123 »

hulitu wrote: post #205
selfhoster11 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to over-analyze this. It's perfectly legitimate to feel that it's weird to use an FS created by someone who murdered his wife, or otherwise violated or opposed norms that you hold important. For instance, I certainly wouldn't use something called HitlerOS as my daily driver (or at all), no matter how good it was, because the name itself makes me uncomfortable.

Then i should not use a linux system because it contains code from NSA, Google, Facebook, Apple or even Microsoft. That's not a reason not to use a system. The US was more than happy to use things created by german war criminals ( V2).

Many people use the BSDs for their transparency and despite Linux catching up in many areas, BSDs (which are arguably more political) have a rock solid reputation. (Maybe that's why all of Apple's flagship products are based on BSD - never heard of them using Linux though) IMHO people forget that software development is of course about the tech but really half of the work is about people, both in Opensource and Commercial developments. Large orgs think twice before they use a (perhaps free) software with bad reputation

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#256

Post by Brian_K_White »

tinco wrote: post #163
Brian_K_White wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could already grow mdraid and reiserfs forever ago.

Yes.. but you couldn't grow ZFS. I don't understand what your point is.

Point was the post is about losing reiserfs, and people are presenting virtues of zfs and btrfs as reasons why we don't need reiserfs any more, and this virtue of zfs is unremarkable.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#257

Post by cestith »

pnutjam wrote: post #241
cestith wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the equivalent edge cases in XFS, ZFS, ext4, Reiser4, Reiser5, bcachefs, or f2fs that make btrfs worth considering on a level playing field?

The wiki has everything you need. https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Gotchas

That is very informative about the edge cases for btrfs. My question was what are the edge cases in the other filesystems which put them on a level playing field with btrfs considersing it still has so many.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#258

Post by marginalia_nu »

karteum wrote: post #222
marginalia_nu wrote: post #10

ReiserFS does have its benefits in highly specific use-cases. I have a filesystem with an absurd number of tiny files in it. I host a statically rendered wikipedia mirror. Tens of millions of gzipped html-files with a filesize in the range 1-5 Kb. ReiserFS is the only filesystem I know that deals even the slightest bit gracefully with this thanks to tail-packing.

> I host a statically rendered wikipedia mirror. Tens of millions of gzipped html-files with a filesize in the range 1-5 Kb. Have you ever tried Kiwix ( https://www.kiwix.org ) and looked at the ZIM format ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIM_(file_format) ), in particular those for Wikipedia ( https://download.kiwix.org/zim ) ?

Yeah, I unpacked a ZIM to get data I'm deriving content from. But reading ZIMs are kinda slow compared to just reading a file from disk.

Re: Is it time to remove reiserfs?

#259

Post by selfhoster11 »

djur wrote: post #224
selfhoster11 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your application interfaces with ReiserFS directly (fsck/servicing scripts), or you expect to see certain performance patterns (like high speed on lots of smaller files), then I would consider this userspace breakage.

In the same sense, Linux broke userspace for 386 users in 3.8 because the users expected Linux to run on their computer. An optional build-time feature being removed does not break userspace.

Arguably yes, abandoning an architecture is breaking userspace. At least for those that are still using it.
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