David T-G said the following on 10/23/2013 06:59 AM:
The last thing I need to figure out for my happy new system is what FS to use.
Maybe not. I use LVM.[1] That gives me a flexibility for backups and archiving since I can use its snapshot mechanism. I have a large number (hey, big disks are cheap[1]) of partitions, many of them under or at 5G in size. That means I can image them onto a DVD for off-line backup. That's actually very easy to do with LVM. You can also use the 'snapper' system to archive any changes you make. Some sites use that so they can roll back updates. Because I use LVM I can use different file systems for different bits of the system. My experimental desktop ha one humongous (all of the disk except swap) file system, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. I tried it to see if BtrFS can do a global optimization. It seems it can but is it worth it compared to the data management flexibility I have using LVM? You asked to avoid a religious war. Well LVM lets me avoid a religious war. If I have a partition of maildir files on a ext3FS and run out of inodes then I can create another partition, perhaps put a ReiserFS on it to avoid that problem, perhaps make it a larger ext3FS & format that with a different inode ratio, rsync across, unmount, rename, remount. Problem solved! Oh, and I can then free up the space of the old FS. Or perhaps XFS or perhaps JFS or perhaps BtrFS or ... Not only am I not committed to one FS, I don't have to stay committed. The argument people often make against my strategy is that those 5G partitions aren't reasonable. Well they are. Look at your tree. Its easy to separate out things like /var and /usr/share. Look how much space they take and look how often they get updated. You may even be able to subdivide those but I'm not sure its worth it. Then there's ~/Documents, ~/Downloads. I also have ~/PDFs. Under my ~/Pictures I have a tree of my own photographs that's currently organized by year. Look to your own file tree. There are other advantages with LVM. It make handling RAID easier and you can do some simple RAID-like things such as mirroring and striping entirely within LVM and on a partition by partition basis. For example, I want my data very secure so mirror it, but things /usr/share I can restore from the distribution so don't need to be mirrored. [1] Except on an experimental desktop which has only a old, old, 20G drive on which I run BtrFS. The drive is old and has a few bad sectors and that really gives BtrFS a workout! WHEEEE! [2] A 2G Barracuda is under $100 from TigerDirect.ca -- How long did the whining go on when KDE2 went on KDE3? The only universal constant is change. If a species can not adapt it goes extinct. That's the law of the universe, adapt or die. -- Billie Walsh, May 18 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org