Just a simple question : Which file system do you recommend for Linux? Ext4…?
EDIT : Thanks to everyone who commented, I think I will try btrfs on my root partition and keep ext4 for my home directory 😃
If you’re just doing a vanilla Linux install, ext4 is the way to go.
Upvoted. Not everyone wants to rely on backups and restore broken system every month like on BTRFS
I disagree. My partition is ext4, but Timeshift saved my ass when an upgrade went wrong. I just had to restore the system from a previous snapshot taken before the upgrade.
Of course updates can break stuff. What I don’t understand is why would you intentionally go for a less stable FS that can break and corrupt all files? It’s especially bad on old machines with limited space where full backups are not possible
Are you talking about ext4 or BTRFS?
Updates can break stuff on any file system but BTRFS is known for worse stability, at least in the past
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Good that you mentioned that. Reminded me that I have an Arch Linux install here where I forgot that I did choose BTRFS during installation. Within maybe a month I noticed FS errors. Looked scary. Nervously searching for documentation was even more scary :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/btrfs#btrfs_check ->
This article or section is out of date.(Discuss in Talk:Btrfs) Warning: Since Btrfs is under heavy development, especially the btrfs check command, it is highly recommended to create a backup and consult btrfs-check(8) before executing btrfs check with the --repair switch.What is this? My beloved Arch Wiki is not 100% perfect!
Then found this :
WARNING: Using ‘–repair’ can further damage a filesystem instead of helping if it can’t fix your particular issue.
Do not use --repair unless you are advised to do so by a developer or an experienced user, and then only after having accepted that no fsck successfully repair all types of filesystem corruption. E.g. some other software or hardware bugs can fatally damage a volume.
I figure this explains the popularity of BTRFS snapshot configurations. Luckily I had some backups :)
Filesystem snapshots won’t help, if the filesystem itself corrupts. But I’ve been using BTRFS for 6 years now and haven’t had a file system corruption, so mileage may obviously vary.
As someone who ran BTRFS for years, I’m personally switching back to EXT4. Yes, the compression and other features are nice, but when things go wrong and you have to do a recovery, it’s not worth the complexity
In my opinion, it depends. If a distro has BTRFS configured to automatically take a snapshot when upgrading (like OpenSuse Tumbleweed), then BTRFS.
If not, for a beginner, ext4 + timeshift to take snapshots of your system in case an upgrade goes wrong will be fine.
How about bcachefs. I’m waiting for it to support swapfiles, which seems to be in the TODO list, but so far doesn’t work. If you use swap partition[s], or prefer not to have swap at all (I never fell for this, and besides swap is required for hibernation if that’s a thing for you), then bcachefs is ready for you. It’s already part of linux since 6.7, and on Artix, current linux is 6.8.9…
To me is the FS to use. I’m still on luks + ext4 (no LVM) and do entire home backups with plain rsync to an external device. I’d have to learn new stuff, since ext4 is really basic and easy to configure if in need, but I think bcachefs is worth it, and as mentioned, just waiting for it to support swapfiles, :)
Thank you for sharing this. I didn’t know this FS yet. It seems new and have some nice goals. I always have a grudge against zfs/btrfs because of the resource usage/performance.
I’ll keep an eye on this. I’d love to find some benchmarks.
Not yet, but bcachefs will be the future as the goals replicate most of OpenZFS while not having that licencing issue.
btrfs every day of the week. The only scenario where I’d even consider something else is for databases that would suffer from CoW.
I’ve been running it on my home server since 2010. The same array has grown from 6x2TB to 6x4TB, one disk at a time as they’ve failed. Currently sitting at 2x18TB+1x4TB. No data loss even though many drives have failed.
I prefer using ext4 for stability. But if stability doesn’t matter to you, you should use BTRFS.
Ext4 for most home users, because it’s simple and intuitive. Btrfs for anyone who has important data or wants to geek out about file systems. It’s got some really cool features, but to actually use most of them you’ll have to do some learning.
I’ve been very happy with btrfs. Ext4 is basically rock solid, so you can’t really go wrong with it, but btrfs has some nice features that ext4 doesn’t have, like snapshots. And it’s fast. I have an extremely cheap SSD that’s too slow to run anything with ext4, but actually usable with btrfs.
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I don’t know what’s the brand neW meta pick, but at least BTRFS over Ext4. BTRFS is just more stable and less corruptable than Ext4. Heck, fedora changed to it as default
To be fair, Fedora switching to something as default isn’t a good sign that you should start using it. I do agree, though, btrfs has come far enough to be a default choice for most people.
What did fedora adopt that wasn’t a good choice in hindsight?
PulseAudio?
I personally use ext4 everywhere but it is recommend to have BTRFS for your OS partition if you take snapshots often.
Btrfs or XFS.
No idea why people are into EXT4. XFS is more performant by far.
EXT4 for Linux. exFAT for removable drives. Never regretted.
I am not interested in fancy technologies. EXT2/3/4 has been here for a few decades.
ext4, just keep it simple.
BTRFS &/OR EXT4
No love for bcachefs?
Uff, somehow missed your post. See mine. That’s the FS I’m hoping to use next. I’m waiting for it to support swapfile, or alternatively read from official sources they won’t ever support it, :). But yes, that’s the one I’m looking forward to use.
