default file system, was: Comparison to Workstation Technical Specification

[Josh Boyer]

On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Adam Williamson <awilliam at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-02-26 at 12:43 -0700, Pete Travis wrote:
>> On Feb 26, 2014 7:24 AM, "Josh Boyer" <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> >
>>
>> > > - Other than lack of shrink support in XFS, I'd say XFS is suitable for
>> Workstation as well. Would the Workstation WG have concerns about the lack
>> of fs shrink support in the default file system? [1]
>> >
>> > I don't think shrink support is a factor at all for Workstation.
>> >
>> ...
>> > josh
>>
>> Filesystem shrinking should be a *requirement* for Workstation.  I'd love
>> to see Fedora as everyone's primary and only OS, but that's a long term
>> goal.  As the flagship desktop offering, Fedora Workstation will be the
>> first choice for inexperienced or casual users, the class of users that
>> boot multiple OSen. The class of users that would switch primary
>> distributions in frustration on discovering that they are forced to
>> reinstall to gain a bit of unallocated space.
>
> Well, you're never 'forced' to do that. You can always just do the
> shrink in pre-flight. It's convenient to have it available from the
> installer, but it's not *necessary*.
>
> It is kind of a significant convenience, though, and I agree Josh kinda
> underplayed it. Losing the ability to install alongside full-disk
> Windows installations without asking the user to do some pre-flight work
> themselves would be a significant loss.

The question was about XFS's lack of ability to shrink.  Not Windows.
In that context, and in the context Pete is talking about, XFS being
able to shrink really isn't a factor.  Windows is already installed,
and you'll be shrinking that filesystem to make room for a Fedora
install, not the other way around.

If we live in a world where Fedora is the _first_ and _only_ OS a
computer has on it when a user gets the machine, and a user needs to
shrink the Fedora install to try another OS, then I will gladly agree
shrink support is a factor.  The last time I checked though, we don't
live in that world...

In the case where a user blows away things and installs Fedora as the
only OS, then gets pissed off with Fedora and wants to switch... well
we've really failed already there.  It's arguable that since they did
that, they kind of knew what they were doing so they can fix things as
needed.

For the users that want to try ALL the OSes because it's fun, I'm not
sure that's something Workstation is really going to strive hard at
achieving.  Also, that is exactly why live images exist.

All of this really only comes into play if XFS is used to begin with,
and as I said elsewhere the only reason I would see Workstation
switching to that is to have commonality with Server.

josh