this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
457 points (89.1% liked)

Technology

55770 readers
3391 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

As a full time desktop Linux user since 1999 (the actual year of the Linux desktop, I swear) I wish all you Windows folks the best of luck on the next clean install 👍

...and Happy 30th Birthday "New Technology" File System!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 225 points 11 months ago (2 children)

How do you know when someone uses linux?

Don't worry, they'll tell you

[–] HR_Pufnstuf 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I wouldn’t tell you if I use Linux. I would tell YOU to use Linux. That reminds me… use Linux!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 19 points 11 months ago (6 children)

We have extra time to diss Windows since we don’t have to wait for our OS to reboot all the fucking time.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Comment by someone who hasn't used Windows in an age. When was the last time you rebooted because you had installed new software? When was the last time you ran random code from a forum post to make software work? Because this windows user doesn't remember ever doing that.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Literally today. That’s why I brought it up. I installed updates and had to reboot twice to finish the task.

[–] herrvogel 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Many Linux package managers themselves tell you you should reboot your system after updates, especially if the update has touched system packages. You can definitely run into problems that will leave you scratching your head if you don't.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (7 children)

*nix systems are not immune to needing reboots after updates. I work as an escalation engineer for an IT support firm and our support teams that do *nix updates without reboots have DEFINATELY been the cause of some hard to find issues. We'll often review environment changes first thing during an engagement only to fix the issue to find that it was from some update change 3 months ago where the team never rebooted to validate the new config was good. Not gonna argue that in general its more stable and usually requires less reboots, but its certainly not the answer to every Windows pitfall.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Haven't used windows in a while huh?

Edit: Just to clarify, I run ALOT of operating systems in my lab; RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu (several LTS flavors), TruNAS, Unraid, RancherOS, ESXi, Windows 2003 thru 2022, Windows 10, Windows 11.

My latest headless Steam box with Windows 11 based on a AMD 5600g basically reboots about as fast as I can retype my password in RDP.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] RobertOwnageJunior 16 points 11 months ago

I have extra time because I don't waste my time on making up arguments!

[–] Audbol 11 points 11 months ago

And boy do you guys ever talk about Windows... Like constantly. Go on any Linux subreddit or community and 8 of the top 10 posts will mention Windows.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 82 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The last update to NTFS was in 2004.

The fact that ReFS doesn't even support all the features NTFS does is pathetic.

[–] deranger 33 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Genuine question, not being sarcastic.

What’s the benefit to the average end user to modernizing NTFS?

Sure, I love having btrfs on my NAS for all the features it brings, but I’m not a normal person. What significant changes that would affect your average user does NTFS require to modernize it?

I just see it as an “if it’s not broken” type thing. I can’t say I’ve ever given the slightest care about what filesystem my computer was running until I got into NAS/backups, which itself was a good 10 years after I got into building PCs. The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter when I’m reinstalling every few years and have backups elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)
  • Near instantaneous snapshots and rollback (would help with system restore etc)
  • Compression that uses a modern algorithm
  • Checking for silent corruption, so users know if their files are no longer correct

I'd add better built in multi-device support and recovery (think RAID and drive pooling) but that might be beyond the "average" user (which is always a vague term and I feel there are many types of users within that average). E.g. users that mod their games can benefit from snapshots and/or reflink copies allowing to make backups of their game dirs without taking up any additional space beyond the changes that the mods add.

[–] havokdj 12 points 11 months ago

Add speed in there

NTFS is slow

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

At the very least, better filesystem level compression support. A somewhat common usecase might be people who use emulators. Both Wii U and PS3 are consoles where major emulators just use a folder on your filesystem. I know a lot of emulator users who are non-technical to the point that they don't have "show hidden files and folders" enabled.

Also your average person wouldn't necessarily need checksums, but having them built into the filesystem would lead to overall more reliability.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (22 children)

Unbelievably, Windows still has a ridiculously short filepath length limit.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nope, long paths are supported since 8.1 or 10 person bit you have to enable it yourself because very old apps can break

[–] eco 10 points 11 months ago

Furthermore, apps using the unicode versions of functions (which all apps should be doing for a couple decades now) have 32kb maximum character length paths.

load more comments (21 replies)
[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You want your filesystems to be old and stable. It's new filesystems you want to view with suspicion.. not battle tested.

[–] olutukko 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't really say so. Of course it's not a good idea take the absolutely latest system as your daily driver since it's propably not bugproof yet but also you don't want to use something extremely old just because it's been tested much more because then you're just trading away perfomance and features for nothing. For example ext4 is extremely reliable and the stable version is 15year newer than NTFS.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I read « NFTs turns 30 yo ». Definitely need an exorcism.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] lyCosmo 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I read it as NFTS and was very confused for a minute.

[–] BrrooklynMan 9 points 11 months ago

NFTS: you invest all of your data into it, and it grows and grows until it suddenly disappears as you discover it was a scam all along.

[–] InvaderDJ 17 points 11 months ago (9 children)

It is weird to me that Microsoft hasn't updated the file system in so long. They were going to with Longhorn/VIsta but that failed and it seems like they've been gunshy ever since.

[–] ultratiem 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You don’t sound like you weren't around the Windows Vista/Longhorn development days when they promised a successor to NTFS and then over the course of the next couple of years, would bail on that (and nearly every other promise made).

WinFS: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-product-regret-winfs/

And FWIW, they are developing ReFS, which looks like it will finally supplant NTFS, but given MS’ business model, don’t expect NTFS to ever really disappear.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] sturmblast 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

Can it die now? ZFS all the things!

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] TheOldRepublic 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I use both. I like Linux better, even more since W10. It's spyware, crap, all those nasty things. But hey, I'm a pc gamer and, sadly enough, my games (80% of them) all get funcky in Linux (wine, playonlinux,... I tried it all), so guess I'm stuck with the crap. But again, Linux is far better and superior

[–] TheRedSpade 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When's the last time you tried gaming on Linux? Valve has made a ton of progress with Proton in the last few years.

[–] TheOldRepublic 11 points 11 months ago (5 children)

It's been a few months now, so I guess I could try it again

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] LazaroFilm 14 points 11 months ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Secret300 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)

This might sound ignorant but that's cause I am. Why doesn't windows just use ext4, btrfs, XFS, or something open source. They wouldn't have to worry about developing it so it'd be a load off their chest and they could get really good features that even NTFS doesn't have. Well maybe not with ext4 but with btrfs

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Microsoft really really hated open source some time ago. Now they seem to have embraced it, however some still think that might be an attempt to EEE.

Still, I suppose Microsoft doesn't think replacing the Windows default filesystem is a sound investment at this point even if the political resistance to such a change is, supposedly, gone.

[–] Aux 17 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Why should they use anything else if NTFS had being great for 30 years?

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] LazaroFilm 11 points 11 months ago

Not Terribly Fast System

load more comments
view more: next ›