>From the Installation instructions....... Gentoo Linux supports a variety of different types of filesystems; each type has its strengths and weaknesses and its own set of performance characteristics. Currently, we support the creation of ext2, ext3, XFS, JFS and ReiserFS filesystems. ext2 is the tried and true Linux filesystem but doesn't have metadata journaling, which means that routine ext2 filesystem checks at startup time can be quite time-consuming. There is now quite a selection of newer-generation journaled filesystems that can be checked for consistency very quickly and are thus generally preferred over their non-journaled counterparts. Journaled filesystems prevent long delays when you boot your system and your filesystem happens to be in an inconsistent state. ext3 is the journaled version of the ext2 filesystem, providing metadata journaling for fast recovery in addition to other enhanced journaling modes like full data and ordered data journaling. ext3 is a very good and reliable filesystem. It offers generally decent performance under most conditions. Because it does not extensively employ the use of "trees" in its internal design, it doesn't scale very well, meaning that it is not an ideal choice for very large filesystems, or situations where you will be handling very large files or large quantities of files in a single directory. But when used within its design parameters, ext3 is an excellent filesystem. ReiserFS is a B*-tree based filesystem that has very good overall performance and greatly outperforms both ext2 and ext3 when dealing with small files (files less than 4k), often by a factor of 10x-15x. ReiserFS also scales extremely well and has metadata journaling. As of kernel 2.4.18+, ReiserFS is now rock-solid and highly recommended for use both as a general-purpose filesystem and for extreme cases such as the creation of large filesystems, the use of many small files, very large files, and directories containing tens of thousands of files. ReiserFS is the filesystem we recommend by default for all non-boot partitions. XFS is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk, and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly. JFS is IBM's own high performance journaling filesystem. It has recently become production-ready, and there hasn't been a sufficient track record to comment either positively nor negatively on its general stability at this point. If you're looking for the most rugged journaling filesystem, use ext3. If you're looking for a good general-purpose high-performance filesystem with journaling support, use ReiserFS; both ext3 and ReiserFS are mature, refined and recommended for general use.
Regards, Robert -----Original Message----- From: Conrad Wolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 27 June 2003 1:31 a.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Test run for Gentoo install fest Thanx Brad! If it is better style, I'll consider a seperate /boot partition. By the way, Google says that Grub supports ext3 as well as reiserfs. Could anybody tell me what the advantages/ disadvantages of a 'journaling' file system over ext2 are. And how compare reiserfs and ext3 to each other? Which one should I go for (I use ext2 at the moment)? Cheers, Conrad. Brad Beveridge wrote: >Safety - generally (under gentoo) /boot is not mounted, or only mounted RO. So you will always be able to boot. However, since I have (repeatedly) dumped bzImage files into /boot _without_ it being mounted, I now mount my /boot partition in fstab. So much for safety. So I spose you can get away with a single partition, as long as your boot loader functions. What I mean, if you are using GRUB as a bootloader, your boot partition must be a filesystem it understands. > >Brad > > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Conrad Wolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Sent: Thursday, 26 June 2003 11:57 p.m. >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Subject: Re: Test run for Gentoo install fest >> >> >>What is the advantage of having a small boot partition. I >>boot my Debian >>system from a 5.4 GB partitions without any problems. >> >>Cheers, >>Conrad. >> >>Brad Beveridge wrote: >> >> >> >>>I began installing gentoo on a laptop last night, my partitions are >>>/dev/hda1 - ntfs (gah) /dev/hda2 - ext3, boot region, 30Mb >>> >>> >>(only needs >> >> >>>to be large enough to fit 1 bzImage really) /dev/hda3 - >>> >>> >>500Mb swap (you >> >> >>>can use your Debian swap) /dev/hda4 - reiserfs for the rest. >>> >>> >> - reiser >> >> >>>or ext3 is reccommended >>> >>>Brad >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>-----Original Message----- >>>>From: Conrad Wolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>>Sent: Thursday, 26 June 2003 11:49 p.m. >>>>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>>Subject: Test run for Gentoo install fest >>>> >>>> >>>>Sorry, but I won't make it to the meeting on Monday. This is >>>>particularly bad, because I won't be there for the test run of our >>>>Gentoo install fest next Saturday. My laptop is booting >>>>Nick's CD and I >>>>can get my NIC working. Is there anything else that could >>>> >>>> >>go wrong or >> >> >>>>that I should check? >>>> >>>>Chris mentioned in one of his posts that 3 partitions are >>>>needed for the >>>>Gentoo install. What do they have to look like (size, type) >>>>and what're >>>>they used for. On my current Debian system I've 1 swap and >>>> >>>> >>1 ext2 (/) >> >> >>>>partition. For data I've got a FAT32 partition that I access >>>> >>>> >>>>from Linux >>> >>> >>>>and Windows. >>>> >>>>Cheers, >>>>Conrad. >>>> >>>> >>>>
