Status of Samsung F2FS support?

[Fernando Cassia]

Hi there,

I wonder what is the current status with regards to Samsung F2FS boot
support. When I first heard about F2FS I thought it'd be a nice solution to
finally be able to get a full R/W Linux installed on a pen drive, without
tricks like ram drives...

So far, I haven't seen a Linux distro that allows placing /boot /root and
/home into a F2FS filesystem.

The ideal scenario would be to boot an install ISO from one pen drive, and
create a permanent installation on a second pen drive inserted into another
port, then afterwards boot from that second F2FS formatted drive...

Thoughts? Comments? Expletives? ;-)))
FC

[John Wendel]

On 10/13/2013 03:46 PM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I wonder what is the current status with regards to Samsung F2FS boot 
> support. When I first heard about F2FS I thought it'd be a nice 
> solution to finally be able to get a full R/W Linux installed on a pen 
> drive, without tricks like ram drives...
>
> So far, I haven't seen a Linux distro that allows placing /boot /root 
> and /home into a F2FS filesystem.
>
> The ideal scenario would be to boot an install ISO from one pen drive, 
> and create a permanent installation on a second pen drive inserted 
> into another port, then afterwards boot from that second F2FS 
> formatted drive...
>
> Thoughts? Comments? Expletives? ;-)))
> FC
>
> -- 
> During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a 
> revolutionary act
> George Orwell

Build your own kernel with F2FS support built in. Install it on your pen 
drive. Boot.

Regards

John

[Fernando Cassia]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 1:10 AM, John Wendel  wrote:
> Build your own kernel with F2FS support built in. Install it on your pen
> drive. Boot.
>
> Regards

I thought there would be some other hurdles for f2fs boot support, ie
anaconda offering it as an option?

Am I the only one interested in having a functional linux system installed
on a 64GB USB 3.0 pen drive? Apparently, yes ;)

FC

[Suvayu Ali]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 06:27:07AM -0300, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 1:10 AM, John Wendel  wrote:
> > Build your own kernel with F2FS support built in. Install it on your pen
> > drive. Boot.
> >
> > Regards
>
> I thought there would be some other hurdles for f2fs boot support, ie
> anaconda offering it as an option?

More importantly, does any of the boot loaders support f2fs?

[T.C. Hollingsworth]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 2:27 AM, Fernando Cassia  wrote:
> I thought there would be some other hurdles for f2fs boot support, ie
> anaconda offering it as an option?

Yes, it would need to be supported by both Anaconda and GRUB.  (The
latter being a prerequisite for the former.)
> Am I the only one interested in having a functional linux system installed
> on a 64GB USB 3.0 pen drive? Apparently, yes ;)

You can already install Fedora directly onto a USB drive using
anaconda and any filesystem it presently supports.

It uses GRUB by default, and that usually will work with most modern
systems.  But if you want something more lightweight, use ext4 as your
filesystem, skip bootloader installation, and then manually install
extlinux after installation:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux#Manual_install

-T.C.

[Fernando Cassia]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 5:41 PM, T.C. Hollingsworth <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> You can already install Fedora directly onto a USB drive using
> anaconda and any filesystem it presently supports.
>
> It uses GRUB by default, and that usually will work with most modern
> systems.  But if you want something more lightweight, use ext4 as your
> filesystem

The life of such flash drive (a pen drive, which has no TRIM support) will
be very low, SPECIALLY using a journaling file system.

Ext2 with very large cache and lazy writes IMHO would be the only sensible
option. But then F2FS is specially designed for flash storage... so I guess
it's a matter of waiting for F2FS to mature.... :-/

FC

[Heinz Diehl]

On 14.10.2013, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> I wonder what is the current status with regards to Samsung F2FS boot
> support. When I first heard about F2FS I thought it'd be a nice solution to
> finally be able to get a full R/W Linux installed on a pen drive, without
> tricks like ram drives...

To date, f2fs is under massive development. You don't really want it
now, unless you like to experiment with your data  :-)