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 😃

    • Mereo@lemmy.ca
      61·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
        47·
        1 year ago

        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

    • lemmyreader@lemmy.mlEnglish
      51·
      1 year ago

      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 This article or section is out of date.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.

      Warning

      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 :)

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
        3·
        1 year ago

        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.