JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

jumico · 2008-12-13 06:14:57

It turns out IBM isn't very interested in developing JFS since support for it is being dropped from distributions like suse. They says they will still release bugfixes but it's kinda disapointing that it isn't actively developed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFS_(file_system)

XFS website hasn't had any updates since july 2007. Maybe they've been recovering from their bankrupcy problems.
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/

It doesnt seem reiser4 is being developed by namesys like it used to.

Overall it's kinda disapointing. I would like to see these more activeley devloped it would be cool to see what came out of them and have them keep up with other filesystems.

cdwillis · 2008-12-13 06:51:16

I'd like to see support for these other file systems, but if neglecting them means adding more support to other file systems then I'm all for it. I think Linux development could use more concentrated development in certain areas.

iBertus · 2008-12-13 08:20:37

Most of the stuff SuSE does is motivated by politics. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on what they did as an indicator of the general state of things. I've used JFS for a few years and it hasn't failed me yet. I'm not sure what other features you would want added to this filesystem.

jumico · 2008-12-13 09:12:44

Most of the stuff SuSE does is motivated by politics. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on what they did as an indicator of the general state of things. I've used JFS for a few years and it hasn't failed me yet. I'm not sure what other features you would want added to this filesystem.

It's fine for now but as other file systems keep progressing ones that aren't developed will become outdated.

It seems btrfs is one of the big filesystems for linux's future since we can't get our hands on zfs.

attila · 2008-12-13 10:23:51

jumico wrote:

It turns out IBM isn't very interested in developing JFS since support for it is being dropped from distributions like suse. They says they will still release bugfixes but it's kinda disapointing that it isn't actively developed.

Good that my opensuse 11.0 server don't know this and my jfs partitions works as they works even.:) I don't see this critical that they release only bugfixes because what else should they do if the layout of the filesystem is fixed for a long time.

jumico wrote:

XFS website hasn't had any updates since july 2007. Maybe they've been recovering from their bankrupcy problems.

Be you sure that this is an indicator for the development because there be fixes for xfs in the kernel 2.6.27 changelogs which shows me the same as for jfs: If something wrong they fix it but they don't change the layout of the filesystem.

jumico wrote:

It doesnt seem reiser4 is being developed by namesys like it used to.

This is sad but this could even be happens if people can't work togehter.

jumico wrote:

Overall it's kinda disapointing. I would like to see these more activeley devloped it would be cool to see what came out of them and have them keep up with other filesystems.

Perhaps i misunderstood you but your words looks for me like that at example ext4 is the next wonder only because it is more in the press as the good old other filesystems.:)

Personally i'm very satisfied with jfs and i like it very much that i don't have to fine tune it with a lot of parameters in the fstab. So Sorry, if i don't see this so bad as you.

wuischke · 2008-12-13 12:05:45

One thing I miss about JFS is online defragmentation. I believe this was supported in OS/2, but not ported to Linux.

Jeffers0n · 2008-12-13 13:09:26

It's sad that reiser4 is most likely going to die out, but honestly I couldn't care less about JFS and XFS. What I really want to see is ZFS under linux, but I know that licensing issues prevent this from happening besides running in FUSE. I guess I just have to wait for BTRFS or tux3.

dolby · 2008-12-13 20:24:18

Let me put it this way. Even if JFS and XFS actually do die, especially JFS, i dont intend to use EXT* ever again if they dont rewrite it from scratch. ReaserFS is already dead. At least for me.

ArchArael · 2008-12-13 21:53:46

Well, I'm using both on my laptop. JFS for / and XFS for /home.

No complains, they are both great systems and I don't think they're dying. Just an opinion though.

brisbin33 · 2008-12-13 22:45:03

dolby wrote:

i dont intend to use EXT* ever again if they dont rewrite it from scratch.

not to start a flame war at all, to each his own. but i'm sitting in an ext2/3 system w/o any problems. maybe i don't know what i'm missing? what setup do you use and what's caused you to stay away from the ext's? i plan on moving to a new bigger HDD soon and that's always a good time to rethink one's partitions.

thanks

iBertus · 2008-12-13 23:01:02

I suppose the one feature JFS could add is the ability to shrink a filesystem, so that it plays nice with LVM.

cardinals_fan · 2008-12-14 02:44:13

I'm about to install CRUX with a JFS filesystem, so they aren't dead yet.

Ranguvar · 2008-12-14 05:03:36

@dolby, why so?

Namesys is dead, but I really hope Reiser4 gets continued development. I know there's a few volunteers from the old company, but they need more helpers. ext4 is comparable in speed, usually a little slower, sometimes better, but Reiser4's transparent compression is a life-saver. Ridiculously high compression of text and multitudes of small files (Linux systems tend to be full of them), all while being actually faster on modern PCs - due to the fact that the hard drive has become the bottleneck the VAST majority of the time, and the CPU can take some hits. I am currently using ext3 for my home (just in case the people out there preaching the evils of Reiser are right), ext2 for my boot, and ReiserFS for my root (Reiser filesystems are known to have excellent performance with multitudes of small files). I will likely move to Reiser4 for my root as long as I can keep getting patches against recent kernels, and ext4 for my home, again, in case the nay-sayers turn out to be right. I might even use an ext4 /etc if I'm feeling really paranoid.

I love how, compared to the week-long chore of reinstalling Winblows to my _very_ demanding tastes, I could recover from losing my root in no time flat. Just re-install all packages and boom. Since configs are stored in (usually) standard locations, as sane text files or scripts, I can easily schedule regular backups to even the most limited of free upload sites, etc., if I'm feeling paranoid.

Anyways, on topic, I don't think JFS and XFS will be missed a whole lot. ext4 is paving the way for fast, widely-used and supported, backwards-compatible, journaled file access. Of course most sane people will wait a while before depending on it, but what specifically do XFS and JFS offer against ext4? I know JFS is light on resources, but I think that advantage is slowly dying as hardware becomes more powerful... But I _really_ hope the technology in Reiser4 is not ignored. Also, btrfs is worth a look.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2008-12-14 05:06:53)

iBertus · 2008-12-14 05:24:48

I'm not sold on ext4. It's just an updated version of the same general concept. I'm planning to stick with my current setup until some of the nicer FS ideas become better developed.

deltaecho · 2008-12-14 07:22:39

Ranguvar wrote:

I might even use an ext4 /etc if I'm feeling really paranoid.

I thought /etc couldn't be located on a partition separate from /(root); just recently, I tried relocating /etc to a separate ext3-formatted partition and kept getting "cannot find inittab" errors at boot, so I had to move it back to my /(root) partition. Have you ever been able to do this?

iphitus · 2008-12-14 10:25:03

And reiserfs v3 has been in maintenance mode for years.... it has only received bug fixes sparingly, no new development. Once reiser4 was usable Namesys practically dropped reiser3 altogether, forcing the rest of the developers to maintain it.

Themaister · 2008-12-14 14:07:47

I'm using JFS!

fukawi2 · 2008-12-14 21:43:32

JFS ftw. I can't to use ext2/3 anymore except for /boot - one of the reasons I never use RedHat / CentOS these days is that they don't include JFS support at install time.

But at the end of the day, each to his/her own. Whatever gets your rocks off

Wintervenom · 2008-12-15 00:18:18

I like JFS, but it is not always very forgiving. On the first occasion, I ended up with files that I couldn't even delete from the live CD, so I re-installed. Then, just two days ago, it sat for a while replaying the journal, then when I logged in, I found that a bunch of stuff in my $HOME folder and in /var had gotten damaged. This has happened more than once. So, now, I'm sticking with ext3.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-08-03 14:29:28)

Ranguvar · 2008-12-15 02:32:11

JFS users, why do you like JFS?

@deltaecho: I believe you can have an etc directory on your root partition with the few key files necessary for the init before partitions in your fstab are mounted, including the fstab file, and have a line in that fstab which mounts the new /etc (it will just replace the old one). I _think_ this is also possible by including those files in one's initrd, but I may be way off.

joephantom · 2008-12-15 03:08:34

Wintervenom wrote:

I like JFS, but it is not always very forgiving. On the first occasion, I ended up with files that I couldn't even delete from the live CD, so I re-installed. Then, just two days ago, it sat for a while replaying the journal, then when I logged in, I found that a bunch of stuff in my $HOME folder and in /var had gotten damaged. This has happened more than once. So, now, I'm sticking with ext3.

I use ext3... and was planning to switch to jfs. Your comment convice me to stick with it.

Maybe I should try Reiser4 for root.

iBertus · 2008-12-15 03:15:30

Ranguvar wrote:

JFS users, why do you like JFS?

I find that JFS provides a nice balance for many different workloads. You can use it with small or large files and various I/O patterns, and the performance is relatively the same. Other filesystems I've tried tend to be far less generic in performance. Take XFS, which seems to bog down with directories full of small files. JFS isn't as good as ReiserFS in this situation, but doesn't suffer to the extreme of XFS. Also, JFS tends to be light on the CPU cycles, which is good for laptop use.

iBertus · 2008-12-15 03:16:58

joephantom wrote:

Maybe I should try Reiser4 for root.

You're not going to try JFS, but you're going to try Reiser4? That just sounds strange too me.

fukawi2 · 2008-12-15 03:17:22

Ranguvar wrote:

JFS users, why do you like JFS?

1. Only meta data is journaled. This makes booting after an unclean shutdown nice and quick compared to ext3, especially on the laptop. I rarely do a lot of disk i/o so I rarely risk loosing data, yet my file systems are always consistent.
2. I've only suffered one significant error in the past, which was just a matter of manually running fsck to get up and running again. Every other time it's replayed the journal and booted fine.
3. Online growing... I can expand my LVM, then do `mount -o remount,resize /mnt/point` and it all gets resized without any offline-ness.
3a. Because everyone else seems to hate it

Last edited by fukawi2 (2008-12-17 21:32:22)

joephantom · 2008-12-15 03:36:31

iBertus wrote:

joephantom wrote:
Maybe I should try Reiser4 for root.
You're not going to try JFS, but you're going to try Reiser4? That just sounds strange too me.

Not for me, 'cause I have not yet tried JFS or Reiser4 .

I will try JFS (in my netbook, I have read it has a small use of CPU) and Reiser4, but not in my main workstation.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-13 06:14:57

JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#2 2008-12-13 06:51:16

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#3 2008-12-13 08:20:37

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#4 2008-12-13 09:12:44

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#5 2008-12-13 10:23:51

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#6 2008-12-13 12:05:45

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#7 2008-12-13 13:09:26

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#8 2008-12-13 20:24:18

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#9 2008-12-13 21:53:46

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#10 2008-12-13 22:45:03

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#11 2008-12-13 23:01:02

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#12 2008-12-14 02:44:13

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#13 2008-12-14 05:03:36

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#14 2008-12-14 05:24:48

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#15 2008-12-14 07:22:39

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#16 2008-12-14 10:25:03

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#17 2008-12-14 14:07:47

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#18 2008-12-14 21:43:32

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#19 2008-12-15 00:18:18

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#20 2008-12-15 02:32:11

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#21 2008-12-15 03:08:34

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#22 2008-12-15 03:15:30

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#23 2008-12-15 03:16:58

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#24 2008-12-15 03:17:22

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

#25 2008-12-15 03:36:31

Re: JFS XFS and ReiserFS are dying

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