On 09/20/2017 01:39 AM, Richard Brown wrote:
Apart from the fact that ReiserFSv3 is the only filesystem I am aware of who's fsck consistently destroys data?
If you store a ReiserFS v3 disk image (VM, container, etc) on a ReiserFS v3 filesystem, fsck WILL confuse your the disk image for another partition and 'restore' files from the image, corrupting the filesystem and losing data in the process.
This is even possible if you do not totally wipe (not just format, but totally overwrite) a previous ReiserFS v3 partition on the same disk - Reisers' fsck otherwise will try and 'restore' data from the previous partition, overwriting the current one.
This is behaviour that's abhorrent and remains unfixed. There is no sane person with any understanding of filesystems who could possibly argue that ReiserFS v3 'needs no maintenance' ; even Reiser himself felt the problems were unresolvable, which is why Reiser v4 was started to fundamentally rewrite most of the filesystem to workaround that issue.
Do you really want to trust your data to a filesystem which has fundamental flaws which even the author abandoned rather than trying to fix?
And sure, some die-hard volunteers are maintaining Reiser v4, but it has not been merged into the mainline Linux kernel. And it is unlikely to ever do so, because Reiser4 does not follow Linux coding standards.
Do you really want to trust your data to a filesystem who's code quality is so poor there is no likelihood of it ever being merged into the Linux kernel? Whatever people may or may not do in other OBS repos is immaterial - openSUSE currently only supports filesystems that are part of the mainline Linux kernel.
And that doesn't mean we fully support ALL filesystems in the kernel; v3 is still built in the mainline kernel for backwards compatibility purposes - but no one should use it. YaST no longer supports installations with it. Upgrades will force migration to a different filesystem. This is good advice - Everyone should migrate to more sensible options than Reiserv3 as soon as possible. Anything is probably a more sensible option.
Anyone who ignores this might be able to handcraft a running system regardless, but they should realise they are on their own.
They should expect that no bugs reported will be fixed, bug reports that mention reiserfs are likely to be closed if filesystem type is a possible factor, no compatibility can be ensured as new kernel features are enabled, breakages are most certainly possible and no effort will be made to test for them, nor fix them if they're reported.
OK, Richard, you make some good points. I have not yet gone googling for a comparison of major distros and their preferred file systems but I will. I seem to remember looking at such a chart some eons ago. I also saw a fs comparison chart that tried to show the differences between various filesystems and, of course, there are useage reports from the community that give insight to which fs to use for what purpose. I seem to remember several long threads on that subject and I also seem to remember it came down to Ford vs Chevy vs Mopar vs Riceboxes or, to put it another way, there wasn't much in the way of consensus for having the one fs to rule them all. Which fs do you prefer? Why? What is its main purpose? (ie, server, occasional use in either desktop or laptop, RAID, SSD, etc) Sometime soon I will be forced to take the time to upgrade my system here so your input would be appreciated. By upgrade I mean to replace HDD and OS, i.e. a fresh install of something. The what is still up in the air. Fred -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org