opensuse 12.1 Btrfs vs ext4 , is it safe to choose btrfs in the installation?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

hi there.

i see that there is option to choose btrfs instead of ext4.

is it safe to choose btrfs?? anyone have troubles with it (when he testing rc or beta of opensuse 12.1)???

2

That’s a good question.
As far as I know, the file system is now mature, but the problem is that it does not still have a fsck tool, making it potentially dodgy in case of brutal shutdown, like power failure.
https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/

I suppose (I have no info on this, it’s just a wild guess, maybe someone will confirm this ?) the idea of the OpenSUSE devs was to propose it anyway, and add the fschk tool later, when it will be functional (which was supposed to happen a few months ago already, it seems).

I’m no expert in these matters, but personally, I’ll stick to the ext4 for now, eventually reinstalling OpenSUSE 12.1 on btrfs partitions when the aforementioned fsck tool is available.

Oh, and beware : grub does not handle btrfs, so you’ll need a separate /boot partition in case you go for the new fancy stuff …

3

On 11/16/2011 08:36 AM, Haber Nir wrote:
>
> hi there.
>
> i see that there is option to choose btrfs instead of ext4.
>
> is it safe to choose btrfs?? anyone have troubles with it (when he
> testing rc or beta of opensuse 12.1)???

“safe” depends on how you define it…

personally, i would recommend you use it on a machine with absolutely
zero data that you wish to keep (AKA: sandbox)!! and always report all
bugs you find…

last i heard btrfs continues to be EXPERIMENTAL software…

read more:

“it’s so fragile (IMO FAT is more stable) that it’s not worth trying yet
… not a single tool to recover data” cite http://tinyurl.com/bp2tfkq

“…BTRFS is still experimental, so Ext4 is the safest choice.” cite:
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:SSD_performance

finally: i will not use it on my daily driver until it is the default
install…ymmv

–
DD http://gplus.to/DenverD
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems

4

On 2011-11-16 09:21, DenverD wrote:
> finally: i will not use it on my daily driver until it is the default
> install…ymmv

Not until they put it on SLES/SLED >;-)

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

5

On 11/16/2011 09:53 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Not until they put it on SLES/SLED

excellent point!!

–
DD http://gplus.to/DenverD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems

6

Phoronix tested BTRFS vs EXT4 on a SSD with kernel 3.1 and pointed out EXT4 is still much faster than BTRFS: click

7

Hi
It is there…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.9-desktop
up 22:02, 3 users, load average: 0.60, 0.30, 0.16
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 285.05.09

8

On 11/16/2011 01:14 PM, malcolmlewis wrote:
> It is there

as an option…not default installed on a new installation of (say)
SLES 10 or 11…right?

–
DD http://gplus.to/DenverD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems

9

Hi
Not in SLE 10 or earlier versions of SLE 11. Can’t remember now if it
was the default… Won’t be downloading the latest beta until this
evening…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.9-desktop
up 23:20, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.14, 0.08
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 285.05.09

10

I’ve tested BTRFS on Tumbleweed for 2-3 months.
Feels snappier doing lots of small I/O compared to ext4 (may be placebo), but it is EXTREMELY fragile.
You can lose entire partition because of power failure.

I’ve encountered 3 filesystem corruptions and lost my /home twice (but I had partition backups of course!).

So even though I was excited about it (you can find my old posts about “how fast it is”)…
I wouldn’t recommend it yet. I even discourage until fsck is available.
OR You can end up with ugly kernel error screen during system boot :slight_smile:

11

The lack of any method to restore corrupted data has been a barrier for me. Are people relying on Snapper for that?

12

On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:56:02 +0000, BartBlackMagic wrote:

> Phoronix tested BTRFS vs EXT4 on a SSD and pointed out EXT4 is still
> much faster than BTRFS: ‘click’ (http://tinyurl.com/664k896)

Though arguably one of the new features in 12.1 depends on using btrfs -
the ‘snapper’ program only works with it.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

13

Note also, that this testing, from the same source but also using a conventional hard disk as well as the SSD, shows the performance to be closer. But that’s always the way with these complex disk format thingies; the results that you get are very dependant on the exact test that you perform.

14

On 2011-11-16 13:14, malcolmlewis wrote:
>

> Hi
> It is there…

In YaST? :-?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

15

> Hi
> It is there…

In YaST? :-?

[/QUOTE]
Hi
Sure, YaST partitioner. I’m downloading the next beta tonight and will
install tomorrow.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.9-desktop
up 0:12, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.20, 0.15
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 285.05.09

16

This Snapper tool - which looks very interesting - is apparently designed to exploit properties of the btrfs file system. On a fresh empty disk this seems ok, although I remember from Meego trials that btrfs doesn’t boot from Grub so a boot partition formatted extX was necessary. Is this still the case and how would that work in a multi-boot system with Grub2? If we can’t get a btrfs system to co-work with other distros in an MBA/sdX partitioned system it’s goodbye to Snapper? There doesn’t seem to be any docs about this on the wiki here or any previous discussion on the forums, which I take it to be a sign that the use of btrfs and Snapper is as yet untested by us general users. Am I wrong?

17

On 2011-11-16 21:48, malcolmlewis wrote:
> Sure, YaST partitioner. I’m downloading the next beta tonight and will
> install tomorrow.

Mmm. Improving.
Still, the lack of repair tools scares me stiff.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

18

Hi
For sure, I used it a couple of beta’s back and had no issues, that
being said, I’m currently back on ext3…

Time will tell… :wink:

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.9-desktop
up 19:44, 3 users, load average: 0.10, 0.09, 0.12
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 285.05.09

19

Currently snapper only works with BTRFS. I saw somewhere that in some future release (the next???) snapper would also work with some other filesystem (not clear whether that was one extra filesystem, eg ext4, or several extra filesystems or all filesystems). But snapper sounds like such a good idea, you could easily see snapper and at least one of the exts being effectively a requirement for SLES/SLED, eventually. Not sure how much extra work it is to get snapper to work with ext3 if you are committed to getting it working with ext4.

For BTRFS, a small boot partition using, eg, ext2 always used to be the standard prescription. Not sure whether there has been any progress on boot-from-BTRFS yet.

@sobrus

I’ve tested BTRFS on Tumbleweed for 2-3 months. Feels snappier doing lots of small I/O compared to ext4 (may be placebo), but it is EXTREMELY fragile. You can lose entire partition because of power failure.

That does sound worrying; what journalling mode are you using?

20

On 2011-11-17 18:36, markone wrote:
> For BTRFS, a small boot partition using, eg, ext2 always used to be the
> standard prescription. Not sure whether there has been any progress on
> boot-from-BTRFS yet.

If there is, it will require grub 2. There is no further developing on grub 1.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)