[EN] Install and FS

[jaegermeister]

Hello Crew,

after having had positive experiences in migrating machines out of aptosid to siduction, I decided to address a "bells&whistles" machine for a first DVD KDE install, a HP xw8400 workstation with two X5150 cpus.

The install went smooth and fast as usual, even if I much appreciated the new web interface which is allowing for more flexibility than the old sidux one. I'm right now writing from this machine, which is running perfectly

Still, I'm missing something in terms of filesystem choice during install.

1. I'm *totally* happy with the introduction of XFS in the available choices (which has since long become my first choice on debian for its resilience to damage), BUT I'd like to format it with my own parameters, otherwise it might not perform well enough; I usually format with:

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mkfs.xfs -l internal,size=256m -L <LABEL> <PARTITION>


therefore it would be beautiful if one could also choose to insert the advanced parameters in case of newfs; otherwise it's always possible to format it from command line, but then it would be appreciated an option "not to format" the partition, like the one present in debian install; I also miss the final button for changing .sidconf (this also could have solved the issue).

2. Why is JFS not present anymore as a choice?

3. Any plans to implement ZFS, at least for non root partitions, considering that it's run with fuse?

Last, but off-topic, I noticed that this KDE install, even though it's DVD sized, is still almost having a "KDE-lite" approach (e.g. no libreoffice inside): is this the way is meant to be or, considering that there are still other 3.7GB free on the optical support, are there plans to include (at least in KDE flavour) a more comprehensive choice of applications "out-of-the-box"? The meaning of my question is: of course we're all an apt-get away from anything but, also considering quicker full-desktop deployments, wouldn't it be a pity to waste all that free space on a DVD?

Thanks and BIG compliments for the terrific job!

[jaegermeister]

Hello, any answer on the FS choice topic?

[devil]

I can answer the KDE part right now.
We do not really think that people use DVD still to install iso images. We rather understand, most people will use usb-pen to do so. There is, at this point no plans to add more stuff to our KDE image to 'fill space'.

greetz
devil

[dibl]

 I'm *totally* happy with the introduction of XFS in the available choices (which has since long become my first choice on debian for its resilience to damage)

Do you install the OS on XFS? What advantage(s) do you believe XFS offers?

[jaegermeister]

Well, XFS has saved my butt where other FS have failed, especially due to blackouts and system crashes. Plus, you can defrag it while running. Third, for bigger files (>1MB) it really kicks ass. Let's add it's mature and has millions of installations. Btw, it's already been 64bit long before ZFS was born.

Ext3 and reiserfs have given me data losses through the years, while jfs after a brutal shutdown (e.g. power loss) may need a fsck from a live distro in order to be remounted correctly. XFS never gave me such problems, I have installed servers up and running since years notwithstanding all the (sometimes tragic) episodes they went through, at least for the FS part.

I'm talking abour RESILIENCE, and good performance. XFS is definitely one of the few certainties I have, after years of activity.

[jaegermeister]

Btw, going back to my original question, will there be an option to set advanced format parameters?

[Geier0815]

Interesting, my experience with xfs where others: No uncommercial undelete funktion and on 32bit systems a lot of problems with not enough memory to check or repair the filesystem after a crash. In former times we used it at work for storing videos on big storagesystems and it was really fast, but if it crash it's a pain in the ass.

[jaegermeister]

I can tell that my experience is both on 32bit and 64bit platforms.
Nevertheless, without the format and mount parameters that I use, performance would be less than happy. If you want to give a try:

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# mkfs.xfs -l internal,size=256m -L <LABEL> /dev/<PARTITION>

# mount -t xfs -o defaults,noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8,attr2,barrier,osyncisdsync /dev/<PARTITION> <MOUNTPOINT>


[dibl]

I installed a Linux OS on a XFS filesystem about 5 years ago.  I remember some of the posted mount options, particularly "logbufs=8".  But after about 6 months I noticed that a VM was taking a strangely long time to shut down, and it kept getting longer (up to 10 minutes), until I decided not to risk my data any further, and reinstalled on ext4.  I did have some "static" data on a XFS filesystem for several years and never noticed any problem with that.  But I have not thought it wise to install an OS on XFS since my experience.

[ralul]

@dibl, you cant compare xfs older 3 years with todays. It is like comparing ext4 to ext2, really!

It is all about philosophy:
Btrfs wants to manage everything. While developers of xfs specialize on one layer: all about compress, stripes and volume management they voluntarily ignore. But on that their layer they provide every tuning possible.

[dibl]

@dibl, you cant compare xfs older 3 years with todays. It is like comparing ext4 to ext2, really!

Aha -- well, yes I admit I have not been a closer follower of XFS developments, after my scary experience with it.

Probably BTRFS is not faster than XFS, but I am very happy with my 2-drive BTRFS installation which is over 18 months old and very solid still.

[ralul]

@dibl, is that raid-0 or raid-1 mirroring?
Have you utilized that famous snapshot feature?