default file system, was: Comparison to Workstation Technical Specification

[Eric Sandeen]

On 2/27/14, 10:53 PM, James Wilson Harshaw IV wrote:
> 
> On 02/27/2014 11:20 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
>> On Feb 26, 2014, at 12:53 PM, Michael Cronenworth <mike at cchtml.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Chris Murphy wrote:
>>>> by default we put ext4 on LVM
>>> The tool works in this use-case unless something has broken it recently.
>> It can be done, the convert tool should work, and Btrfs should work on any device mapper instance. However…
>>
>> In the context of the default ext4+LVM layout the conversion still means separate /boot, /, and /home file systems. A major benefit of the Btrfs layout is these are subvolumes, which instead draw space from one volume pool. And that's lost with a conversion strategy. It also means going from a Fedora "standard" layout to a distinctly non-standard one because our Btrfs layout isn't like the result you'd get from what you're talking about.
>>
>>
>> Chris Murphy
> 
> A question I have, forgive me if it seems stupid, is why not just
> change the standard? From what I have seen is that btrfs is superior
> to ext4 as even Theodore T'so (creator of ext4) said btrfs "offers
> improvements in scalability, reliability, and ease of management".

Yes, that is a thing on Wikipedia isn't it.  ;)  It's referring
to a discussion held 5 years ago.

> I
> feel that eventually other filesystems may show to be better than
> ext4 and we probably will need to change the standards for the sake
> of quality. My fear is that we will be sacrificing quality for not
> having too change much.

I'll see your 5-year-old quote from the ext4 maintainer, and raise
you a 1-day-old quote from a btrfs maintainer:

"Just popping in here to say that btrfs is not ready to be default in
Fedora yet. Optional is fine but not default. Thanks,
Josef."

If and when btrfs becomes a superior solution, I'm sure Fedora
will be eager to ship it.

-Eric