On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 02:47:15PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev <tetrom...@gentoo.org> > > 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We > > have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about > > ext4 as if it's something experimental. > > I tend to agree here. Not sure we need the full discussion of > filesystems either. Ext4 is probably good enough for everybody, and > mention ext3/2 as more established alternatives.
I see no issue putting ext4 as the suggested file system. However, it must be checked on a per-architecture basis (I can only test x86 and amd64 myself - I know, I'm missing all the fun) and preferably brought on by the responsible teams of those architectures. Dropping the (elaborate) explanation on file systems won't win us much. It's not like it is that long - a paragraph per file system type. Even the online help in recent distribution installations provide more information. > I tend to feel the same way about stuff like LILO. I would *really* like to drop LILO and while we are at it, get grub2 working on all systems/architectures and stable ;-) But I'm not going to drop LILO without group consent. > Then again, Gentoo is about choice. It just seems like we're > presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie. If > there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want, > and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for > 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook? Welcome to documentation development. The Gentoo Handbook has always been a difficult source for such discussions. If we truely want to provide information towards our users on all possible choices, you'll need a totally different approach. I once started (before I left Gentoo, rejoined, left again) on a "complete gentoo handbook" that covered much more in greater detail (you'll find the last version at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml) but I've since moved away from that. Perhaps I should work again on it... Wkr, Sven Vermeulen
