Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Richard Fish schrieb: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: Reiser4 is alpha code in motion. I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment. On my normal home system, I use reiser4 and don't have any bad experiences with it - yet *G* I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still mounted. All (besides reiser4 and ext* without patches) can be resized while mounted. Ie. XFS, JFS reiser3 can be resized. The only FS that (right now) cannot at all be resized is reiser4, since there's just no resizer tool available. Alexander Skwar -- printk(KERN_ERR %s: Something Wicked happened! %4.4x.\n,...); linux-2.6.6/drivers/net/sundance.c -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Hi, I been moving my gentoo system to other partition (ran out of space). My old partition ran reiserfs 3.6 and due to this discussion, I've decided to run ext3 in the new partition. Still to find out if it was a wise decision... Anyway, the first thing I noticed was this: # df /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires *much* more space ~450M. Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...?? Cheers, Fernando On 8/9/05, Bob Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:33:27 +0800Ow Mun Heng [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood)Perhaps I should mention one of the main reasons I use XFS - the tools.Performanceis not a reason.Reliability is a reason.And the tools. xfs_check and xfs_repair are about the best I've seen.No, if your LVM superblock istrashed, they won't fix it.They fix the filesystem, not the disk/partition structure.And xfs_dump/xfs_restore make cloning a partition very easy.Given all the discussion in this list alone about cloning drives, I'm really surprised more people don't adopt XFSjust for this issue alone.Disclaimer - yes I work for SGI.No I don't develop, I break software.And I pull plugs on running systems.So any advice I give here on anything related to SGI productsshould be treated with caution. No, I don't speak for SGI.And yes I really do use XFSon almost all my systems - Trying ext3 on a Kurobox (200 MHz PPC runnng Gentoo) and RiserFS on one of the desktop x86 systems.Bob---gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 11:29:18 +, Fernando Meira wrote: # df /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires *much* more space ~450M. Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...?? It's right if you have a lot of small files. Reiserfs uses tail packing (unless mounted with the notail option) to greatly reduce the amount of space occupied by small files, at the expense of some performance. -- Neil Bothwick Just don't give away the homeworld! pgpdIMyAGKlE7.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Ok, so then reiserfs is a good choice when disk-space is a limitation. In the Gentoo Handbook is stated that reiserfs greatly outperforms ext3 when dealing with some files, often by a factor of 10x-15x. But what about big files? I might just redo my moving process and turn the new partition to reiserfs. FernandoOn 8/13/05, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 11:29:18 +, Fernando Meira wrote: # df /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires *much* more space ~450M. Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...??It's right if you have a lot of small files. Reiserfs uses tail packing(unless mounted with the notail option) to greatly reduce the amount of space occupied by small files, at the expense of some performance.--Neil BothwickJust don't give away the homeworld!
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:24:06 +, Fernando Meira wrote: Ok, so then reiserfs is a good choice when disk-space is a limitation. In the Gentoo Handbook is stated that reiserfs greatly outperforms ext3 when dealing with some files, often by a factor of 10x-15x. But what about big files? It depends what you mean by big. I tend to think of raw video and DVD ISO images as big, and XFS has a definite advantage there, but you don't deal with those when disk-space is a limitation. For tens of MB files, reiserfs is fine. -- Neil Bothwick Bother, said Pooh, more from force of habit than anything else. pgpoLHfU79nsn.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On 13 August 2005 12:29, Fernando Meira wrote: Hi, I been moving my gentoo system to other partition (ran out of space). My old partition ran reiserfs 3.6 and due to this discussion, I've decided to run ext3 in the new partition. Still to find out if it was a wise decision... Anyway, the first thing I noticed was this: # df /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires *much* more space ~450M. Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...?? ReiserFS packs small files more efficiently. That's the difference you are seeing. Uwe -- 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software developers. - Linus Torvalds http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:24:31 -0700, Richard Fish wrote: In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop. I mostly agree with you, although XFS doesn't really replace entire files with zeros, just blocks that have been allocated but not written with actual data...so /var/log/messages is likely to get some zeros in the event of a bad crash. Files that were not being written at the time of the crash are not affected. XFS is good for a laptop as it is less likely to suffer a sudden failure than a desktop, the battery acts as a UPS. As long as you run some sort of battery monitor that shuts the computer down cleanly when battery levels become critical, power loss should not be an issue. XFS: aggressively caches, so might give you some power savings...although real-world savings are likely to be slight to none. Nice features (the only one that offers a free defragmentation utility, even if it is brain-damaged). Cannot be shrunk, only grown. However, it can be grown while mounted, something that is unsafe with the other filesystems, and something the OP asked for. Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the filesystem must be unmounted. -- Neil Bothwick Windows booting: insert CD-ROM 2. pgpS3gSxtGhrB.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 18:30 -0700, Bob Sanders wrote: On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:40:36 +0200 Alexander Skwar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello! What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook? I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive. Any journaling filesystem is going to spin up the drive or keep it spinning. And unless your drive is one of the 7200 rpm drives, it's still not the energy hog that the LCD is. For spinning down and power savings, I recommend using laptop_mode. (You can see the article I wrote for the MyOSS Magazine (Ed2 I think) (http:/mag.my-opensource.org) which I wrote about some of the items which you can use for POwer management in Linux. (also read in Ed4, Gnome-Power-Manager written by Richard Hughes, the lead developer) fwiw - I use XFS on my laptop. It survives fine with power going away. But, if all the data is in the buffer and the drive is spun down, having the power die will cause lost data regardless of filesystem. I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood) Bob - -- Ow Mun Heng Gentoo/Linux on DELL D600 1.4Ghz 1.5GB RAM 98% Microsoft(tm) Free!! Neuromancer 17:30:59 up 3 days, 4:05, 7 users, load average: 1.13, 1.01, 0.78 -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On 8/9/05, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (snip) XFS is good for a laptop as it is less likely to suffer a sudden failure than a desktop, the battery acts as a UPS. As long as you run some sort of battery monitor that shuts the computer down cleanly when battery levels become critical, power loss should not be an issue. Absolutely. I have been using XFS in my IBM Thinkpad for months now without any problems. XFS seems to be well suited for laptop use when things are configured as you just described. Regards, - AR -- The absence of war does not mean peace. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:24:31 -0700, Richard Fish wrote: Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the filesystem must be unmounted. That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted. []'s Mauro -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Tuesday 09 August 2005 14:42, Mauro Faccenda wrote: Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the filesystem must be unmounted. That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted. That's not correct. correct is spelt correct. Oh, and reiserfs can be grown while mounted, but not shrunk while mounted :) -- Mike Williams -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Am Dienstag, 9. August 2005 15:42 schrieb ext Mauro Faccenda: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:24:31 -0700, Richard Fish wrote: Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the filesystem must be unmounted. That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted. That's also not correct. I guess what Neil wanted to say is: reiserfs can be grown online, but needs to be unmounted for shrinking. Bye... Dirk -- Dirk Heinrichs | Tel: +49 (0)162 234 3408 Configuration Manager | Fax: +49 (0)211 47068 111 Capgemini Deutschland | Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hambornerstraße 55 | Web: http://www.capgemini.com D-40472 Düsseldorf | ICQ#: 110037733 GPG Public Key C2E467BB | Keyserver: www.keyserver.net pgpA28Yd4rssI.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:42:42 -0300, Mauro Faccenda wrote: That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grow, but the filesystem must be unmounted. That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted. It can grow but not shrink while mounted. I was referring to shrinking. -- Neil Bothwick Is that woof feed me; woof walk me; woof there's a burglar? What?? pgp321XKtHmvZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Neil Bothwick wrote: Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the filesystem must be unmounted. Thanks for the correction. I'm trying to figure out what I read that led me to believe reiserfs could not be shrunk -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 08:09:41 -0700, Richard Fish wrote: Thanks for the correction. I'm trying to figure out what I read that led me to believe reiserfs could not be shrunk Probably the output from resize_reiserfs when you try to shrink. Dire warnings about beta-quality software and the dangers of hair loss and organ shrinkage :) -- Neil Bothwick It's only a hobby ... only a hobby ... only a pgpX0JunwERTg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Richard Fish wrote: In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop. I I've ran xfs, jfs, reiserfs v3 and v4, and ext3. jfs on a firewire drive is a bad idea. When it crashes, it crashes hard. No amount of recovery was helpful. In the end, a week old backup, and a reformat with a new filesystem got me back to production. XFS has been very good to me. I like the performance, and power outages have done nothing to the integrity of the file data. reiserfs3 is good for some things. It treats lots of small files really well. Large files aren't a problem either. It eats major CPU cycles compared to other filesystems. reiser4 is faster when it comes to throughput, and certain non-realworld scenarios, such as creating tens of thousands of directories, or deleting millions of files. Eats CPU cycles like there is no tomorrow. Not a good filesystem for a highly interactive desktop. If your concern is throughput, and you don't need interactivity (a file server in a closet, enclosed in cement) then it would probably make you very happy - provided you don't get burned when a new kernel revision comes out that totally breaks it. ext3 uses the least cpu of all the filesystems. It's not at snappy as xfs or reiser4, but the code base is very stable when it comes to linux. There are also many, many (did I mention many?) utilities, documents, and guru's out there that can help you rebuild your ext3 filesystem in case it really eats itself. I use ext3 on an external harddrive, as I believe in the data recovery aspects of ext3. For my desktop machines, I use xfs. For servers, I use ext3 unless I really feel I need the extra performance, then I use xfs. I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still mounted. $ man xfs_growfs [snip] xfs_growfs expands an existing XFS filesystem (see xfs(5)). The mountpoint argument is the pathname of the directory where the filesystem is mounted. The filesystem must be mounted to be grown (see mount(8)). The existing contents of the filesystem are undisturbed, and the added space becomes available for additional file storage. [snip] you *must* have the filesystem mounted in order to use xfs_growfs. XFS lends itself VERY well to lvm2 (which also runs on all my desktops). -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Tuesday 09 August 2005 20:46, Christian Parpart wrote: However, I once have (accidently!) thrown down one harddrive of mine from within 60cm distance down while moving to a new tower/rac; I were nearly crying about, but before, I quickly invoked fsck.xfs on my LVM (which this disk is part of) and *really* got confused. fsck.xfs is really a no-op. I couldn't figure out yet why. I can now just pray that everything seems to go just well (as it does till now ;) hm, some harddisks tell you in their smart-data, if the shock was over a certain safety threshold. Maybe you should use your copy of smartmontools and copy your data onto a different disk ;) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:33:27 +0800 Ow Mun Heng [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood) Perhaps I should mention one of the main reasons I use XFS - the tools. Performance is not a reason. Reliability is a reason. And the tools. xfs_check and xfs_repair are about the best I've seen. No, if your LVM superblock is trashed, they won't fix it. They fix the filesystem, not the disk/partition structure. And xfs_dump/xfs_restore make cloning a partition very easy. Given all the discussion in this list alone about cloning drives, I'm really surprised more people don't adopt XFS just for this issue alone. Disclaimer - yes I work for SGI. No I don't develop, I break software. And I pull plugs on running systems. So any advice I give here on anything related to SGI products should be treated with caution. No, I don't speak for SGI. And yes I really do use XFS on almost all my systems - Trying ext3 on a Kurobox (200 MHz PPC runnng Gentoo) and RiserFS on one of the desktop x86 systems. Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:40:36 +0200 Alexander Skwar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello! What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook? I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive. Any journaling filesystem is going to spin up the drive or keep it spinning. And unless your drive is one of the 7200 rpm drives, it's still not the energy hog that the LCD is. I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be doable while the FS is mounted. You're asking for Enterprise server features for a laptop? fwiw - I use XFS on my laptop. It survives fine with power going away. But, if all the data is in the buffer and the drive is spun down, having the power die will cause lost data regardless of filesystem. Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Hi, On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote: Hello! What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook? I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive. I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be doable while the FS is mounted. I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the years I came to this: XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing. XFS will replace damaged files with zeros this is both not acceptable. Reiser4 is alpha code in motion. I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment. Well 4 filesystems left ;) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: Hi, On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote: Hello! What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook? I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive. I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be doable while the FS is mounted. I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the years I came to this: XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing. XFS will replace damaged files with zeros this is both not acceptable. Reiser4 is alpha code in motion. I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment. Well 4 filesystems left ;) In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop. I mostly agree with you, although XFS doesn't really replace entire files with zeros, just blocks that have been allocated but not written with actual data...so /var/log/messages is likely to get some zeros in the event of a bad crash. Files that were not being written at the time of the crash are not affected. Having run them all, my recommendation (and what I run currently) is ext3. My soundbite summaries of each are: XFS: aggressively caches, so might give you some power savings...although real-world savings are likely to be slight to none. Nice features (the only one that offers a free defragmentation utility, even if it is brain-damaged). Cannot be shrunk, only grown. Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower performance for others. Also can only be grown. Ext3: Best journalling options available, including full-data journalling if you want it and do not mind the slowness. Otherwise good performance for the opposite operations as reiserfs. Can be grown or shrunk. I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still mounted. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?
Personally I would use ext3 and then hdparm to adjust the drive settings so that it spins down faster when there is no activity. That should give you the best of power saving and data reliability. -MikeOn 8/8/05, Richard Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:Hi,On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote:Hello!What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook? I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of asudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, thatalso doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive. I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking anonline fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should bedoable while the FS is mounted.I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the years I came to this:XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing.XFS will replace damaged files with zerosthis is both not acceptable.Reiser4 is alpha code in motion. I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment.Well 4 filesystems left ;)In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop.Imostly agree with you, although XFS doesn't really replace entire files with zeros, just blocks that have been allocated but not written withactual data...so /var/log/messages is likely to get some zeros in theevent of a bad crash.Files that were not being written at the time of the crash are not affected.Having run them all, my recommendation (and what I run currently) isext3.My soundbite summaries of each are:XFS: aggressively caches, so might give you some powersavings...although real-world savings are likely to be slight to none. Nice features (the only one that offers a free defragmentation utility,even if it is brain-damaged).Cannot be shrunk, only grown.Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slowerperformance for others.Also can only be grown. Ext3: Best journalling options available, including full-datajournalling if you want it and do not mind the slowness.Otherwise goodperformance for the opposite operations as reiserfs.Can be grown or shrunk.I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while stillmounted.-Richard--gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list -- Michael E. CruteSoftware DeveloperSoftGroup Development CorporationIn a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?
