this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I want to learn more about file systems from the practical point of view so I know what to expect, how to approach them and what experience positive or negative you had / have.

I found this wikipedia's comparison but I want your hands-on views.

For now my mental list is

  • NTFS - for some reason TVs on USB love these and also Windows + Linux can read and write this
  • Ext4 - solid fs with journaling but Linux specific
  • Btrfs - some modern fs with snapshot capability, Linux specific
  • xfs - servers really like these as they are performant, Linux specific
  • FAT32 - limited but recognizable everywhere
  • exFAT - like FAT32 but less recognizable and less limited
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ZFS for nearly everything plus ZFSBootMenu EFI on root data pools. Get a bad upgrade? No problem, boot a previous snapshot (auto created with a pacman hook), which I had to do recently when 6.6.39 LTS kernel had a bug. Snapshots are also great when doing things such as upgrading postgres, hass, Plex, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I've been using ZFS now for a few years for all my data drives/pools but I haven't gotten brave enough to boot from it yet. Snapshotting a system drive would be really handy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Ext4 bc of its speed for games and my main files. Btrfs on the root for compression

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

It's all Ext4, but I run SnapRAID on top of that on my data drives. I'm sure lots of people would tell me I should use ZFS/BTRFS instead, but I'm used to SnapRAID, and I like the idea if something goes wrong, I won't lose all my data.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

I use bcachefs for my games, I like that it lets me have multiple disks with redundant data copies, plus ssd caching of frequently accessed files, this fs is linux specific for now as far as I know, and is still experimental. I use ext4 for everything else, and FAT32 for flash drives.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Defaults

So Btrfs, ZFS and ext4 (ext4 is virtual only)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Btrfs main boot drive

Xfs main storage drive

exFAT external "archive" drive (easy to connect to Windows machines if ever I need my backup in someone else's windows machine in an emergency and such)

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[–] seaQueue 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Btrfs, ZFS and ext4. My servers use ZFS, my client machines mostly use btrfs and I have a sprinkling of ext4 partitions for specific workloads. I'm all in on CoW filesystems for snapshots, send receive, transparent compression and reflinks. I like btrfs on client machines and SBCs because it's easily available (baked into the kernel) and doesn't require maintaining dkms or holding kernel versions until ZFS supports them and because snapshot handling and other filesystem admin tasks are simple and straightforward. I run ZFS wherever data integrity is important, eg: storage servers and backup targets, but largely prefer working with btrfs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Pretty much all ext4 except for a few Windows installs on NTFS.

[–] PoopMonster 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Whatever my installation CD had as default 😂. I'm guessing ext4?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Btrfs because it sounded cool when I first read about it and worked fine so far :3

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[–] shotgun_crab 3 points 1 month ago

Btrfs for the compression and snapshots

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

NTFS Usally for windows,ext4 for linux,btrfs to install linux on,vfat/fat32 for cross platform compatibility

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

dual boot NixOS and FreeBSD on a single drive, ext4 on Nix and ZFS on FreeBSD. each partition has its own boot, swap and root, all encrypted

btw, OP wrote that FAT32 is limited, isn't it the default fs for the boot partition? can other fs like ext2/3 be used?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ext4 because I value my data and don't want to lose it. I used to mess about with ZFS for mass storage but it's a university course to learn how to use and have decent performance.

I used to use XFS, but ext4 caught up.

And I used to use XFS... on something other than Linux.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

We use btrfs for the / partition and xfs for any data partitions. Has served us well, the snapshot feature saves us some valuable time when an update goes awry.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I've been basically using btrfs on a lot of my disks because of the features it has.

Before I switched to a borg based system, my backups partition used btrfs for compression.

My main OS disk is btrfs so I can use timeshift snapshots, which are really worth checking out if you tinker with your system a lot.

I have two more btrfs partitions software raid0'd together for my steam library, nix store and other big but loosable things.

And my main home folder uses btrfs because I think the checksumming thing it does is more reliable for error detection, and cow is more fault tollerant on power failure?

... And I now fell like I'm one of those people with an over engineered storage solution. I just never get rid of old ssds or hard disks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Most of my drives are EXT4, but I started using BTRFS a couple years ago and will be using it on all new installs from now on. I really like being able to make snapshots and compression reduces the install size quite a bit.

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