Questions for 11.2 Mx versions

[cybertaz]

I'm running 11.0 with KDE 4.3.1.

I'm thinking of skipping over 11.1 and going straight for 11.2 in November. Is 11.2 good, bad or just the same?

If I wanted to install 11.2 with ext4, can I convert my ext3 /home partition? (I know always backup first!) Or should I just backup, wipe everything and start with fresh root and home partitions?

Is ext4 worth it? What kind of real life differences are you noticing?

NOTE: I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the general chit-chat section. Admins feel free to move if this is better off in the general chit-chat section.

> NOTE: I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the general chit-chat
> section.


why don't you ask the folks who are running it..
they hang out in (of all things) the pre-release/beta forum here

http://forums.opensuse.org/pre-release-beta/

(i know, hard to believe, huh?)

or run it yourself, there is a LiveCD at
http://software.opensuse.org/developer

just download, burn and jump out on the leading edge of Linux
technology today!

--
platinum

[BenderBendingRodriguez]

I wouldn't say openSUSE is a leading edge distribution

This is restricted to Fedora

They are leading in new features with every new release BUT stability is often an issue because of that.

openSUSE 11.2 is going to be a really good edition.

[Confuseling]

Ext4 is noticeably faster - I've not benchmarked it, but I've run the same system on both, and you can tell. Particularly with booting (ridiculously so when it decides to fsck).

You can find benchmarks if you google, but personally, I've just gone for it for my root partition and left my home as ext3. The data loss bugs seem to be being sorted out, but I figure this is a good way to reap most of the advantage without losing my files...

Bring on btrfs!

[cybertaz]

Originally Posted by BenderBendingRodriguez

They are leading in new features with every new release BUT stability is often an issue because of that.

openSUSE 11.2 is going to be a really good edition.

So definitely a go for 11.2

Ext4 is noticeably faster - I've not benchmarked it, but I've run the same system on both, and you can tell. Particularly with booting (ridiculously so when it decides to fsck).

You can find benchmarks if you google, but personally, I've just gone for it for my root partition and left my home as ext3. The data loss bugs seem to be being sorted out, but I figure this is a good way to reap most of the advantage without losing my files...

Bring on btrfs!

Wow, I didn't think that ext4 would be that big of a difference. Do you think the data loss bugs will be fixed in time for the final release?

[Confuseling]

Well, don't get overexcited. It is noticeably faster in disk IO intensive things (which includes booting for me, because I'm on an old solid state, so the disk is a bottleneck).

But it won't magically make your computer better.

The data loss bugs have been mitigated by adjustments to the way EXT4 is implemented, so it is probably fair to say it is fairly safe at this stage. Whether it will ever be 'fixed' is a difficult question, because it's fundamentally connected to delayed allocation (I think...), and that's where EXT4 gets at least part of its speed increase. Even if they fix the file blanking thing (and apart from the changed implementation mentioned above, that means lots and lots of people rewriting their programs), there will *always* be a balance between certainty of writes being recorded and speed. Still, there are a lot of people using it already, and there haven't been a tidal wave of people complaining.

Do a backup, and you can't go wrong...

[BenderBendingRodriguez]

What we need for ext4 to mitigate this file blanking is copy-on-write but unfortunately it will happen for btrfs and not for ext4.

[cybertaz]

[Phoronix] EXT4, Btrfs, NILFS2 Performance Benchmarks

I found this interesting. Scroll down to the SQLite benchmark test. EXT3 and NILFS2 blew away the others tested.

They note that Firefox uses SQLite.

It looks like ext3 and ext4 are really close in performance. The only real difference comes when you have large, or a lot of, files to transfer. Gives me something to think about.

[ReferenceSeete]

openSUSE 11.2: 11.2 is shaping up to be a very good release. Part of it is just good timing with upstream projects (a lot of mature software projects - OOo 3.1.1, GNOME 2.28, KDE 4.3.1 etc). So a lot of the 'iffy' parts have been shaken out thanks to the passing of time, especially on the KDE 4 front. There are still some apps that need a bit more time like Kaffeine & K3B but on the whole things look good.

Another nice thing about this release is that a lot of the polish/fit-and-finish is back. I remember installing 10.3 on KDE 3 and thinking the distro felt like a real competitor against proprietary OS because of the polish. I could show them oS 10.3 and have my non-tech friends say "wow, what's that?". 11.0 & 11.1 didn't have that same feeling and some of it has to do with coming to grips with KDE 4. The devs did an admirable job on their KDE 4.1.3 implementation but it's great to see the distro move from "make it work" to "make it nice".

I would say however that if you can, test against Milestone 8 (or RC 1). That way you can catch any critical bugs that may affect your specific setup. This should help make the installation and use of the final release much better for you.

ext4: It is better than ext3, however you will need to create a new ext4 partition rather than a ext3->ext4 conversion to get all of the new features. Since you have a backup of your important data (right?) this shouldn't be a problem. Of course if you are comfortable with ext3 then stick with it.

[cybertaz]

@ReferenceSeete:

I do have backups. And I have been running KDE 4.X from factory for some time. I have been from 4.0 to 4.3.1. So those articles about doing a conversion ext3->ext4 I have seen won't provide the new features? Well, not a problem. Backup, wipe re-install time.

11.2 is supposed to go Gold around Thanksgiving here in the States. I know what I'm going to be doing over the days off!