On Sat, Oct 21, 2023 at 8:37 AM Keith Bainbridge <keithr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Or is there more to it than this writer is declaring? > > uses the EXT4 filesystem by default. You can convert the filesystem to BTRFS > to take advantage of the in-built compression features. Using compression can > reduce the disk usage by up to 60% without any noticeable impact on CPU > usage. It also improves storage performance, since less data needs to be read > and written to the SD Card. BTRFS also supports filesystem snapshots that > allow you to roll back the system to a previous state in case of issues. > > The article is about Ubuntu on raspberry pi, but may relate to debian in > general.
This is technically accurate, but I would like to add two reservations: 1. 60% sounds optimistic, but possibly realistic if you're talking about the OS install that will have a lot of text and uncompressed executables. I've used btrfs compression for years but never measured the actual storage gain. 2. btrfs snapshots are awesome but "rolling back" is not easy, especially not in debian. I think other distributions makes it easier by adding grub hooks to boot into an older state, but it could be difficult to set this up. I use snapshots mostly for reliable and fast backups, since you can send the difference between two snapshots to another machine in no time. It's also used automatically for my LXD containers. If I'm wrong, I hope someone chimes in to correct me. > I'd really like a pointer to a non-technical how to set it all up, if accurate Can't help much with that, I learnt the hard way. // Anders
