default file system, was: Comparison to Workstation Technical Specification

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Przemek Klosowski <przemek.klosowski at nist.gov> said:
> I understand that by now XFS got so much exercise that its
> robustness is unimpeachable.  As to the size, I see that while the
> latest XFS kernel module is one of the larger kernel modules around,
> it probably is no longer significant on today's multi-GB
> systems---the extra megabyte at current memory prices is just a one
> cent increase in the system cost, after all.

That is true for some systems, but not necessarily for all.  Many ARM
systems are RAM-constrained, and some people using lots of server VMs
also like to keep each VM as small as practical.

> I am pretty sure that ext4 is a built-in module in Fedora kernels,
> as well as in the boot environment; making XFS the default will
> require also building it in, pretty much forever, while we still
> need extXX, and whatever comes next (btrfs?). I am OK with that,
> though.

Not really, it is only recent Fedora releases that have built ext4 into
the kernel.  We went many years with ext3 being loaded as a module (was
it ever built in?); ext4 was added more for convenience.  Having the
"common stuff" that's going to be loaded on something like 99% of Fedora
systems anyway built into the kernel is slightly more efficient and more
convenient.

If we have a split between filesystems between products, then it
probably doesn't make sense to build any of them into the kernel
anymore (well, assuming they all use the same kernel RPMs).

-- 
Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>