Having read an article on the Btrfs file system (June 23, 2010 on the Phoronixsite) it seems there is significant performance gains when run with compression. Would it be advisable to use the Btrfs file system with compression on a laptop with Opensuse 11.3? Or is the btrfs code in kernel 2.6.34 not as “mature” as that used in the article 2.6.35
Btrfs still has a long way to go until it’s usable, see → here.
Thanks that review clearly indicates that its not ready for prime time, although am I correct to say it was based on the 2.6.33 kernel. Opensuse 11.3 will be a more recent kernel… perhaps it’ll be a little more stable but still pretty much in the development phase 
On 06/24/2010 02:46 PM, allianux wrote:
>
> Thanks that review clearly indicates that its not ready for prime time,
> although am I correct to say it was based on the 2.6.33 kernel.
> Opensuse 11.3 will be a more recent kernel… perhaps it’ll be a little
> more stable but still pretty much in the development phase
There are 17 patches to btrfs SINCE 2.6.35-rc3! That indicates to me that
it is very much a work in progress. I would not put anything important in
such a file system.
It seems these updates have been ported back from 2.6.35 to OS 11.3 for kernel 2.6.34 (11.3 Changelog 24/06/10) 
LXDE uses btrfs so if you want to try btrfs that might be the way to go
Index of /repositories/X11:/lxde and pick yourflavor
dale14846, what exactly does a desktop environment such as LXDE has to do with a filesystem?
I was in error I thought my installation of LXDE was btrfs by default but fter checking and re checking it defaults to ext4. sorry
gropiuskalle]dale14846, what exactly does a desktop environment such as LXDE has to do with a filesystem?
Nothing looks like I just installed LXDE with btrfs on a whim.
btw grub wont boot with btrfs so a seperate boot partition formated with ext is needed
In, essentially, one use case, there is a big performance gain. That shouldn’t be taken as evidence that there is a similar perf gain in any other use cases, though. The extra space would be handy, though.
Would it be advisable to use the Btrfs file system with compression on a laptop with Opensuse 11.3?
Probably not; if BTRFS is currently only marginally ready, BTRFS-with-compression is sub-marginally ready, having been subjected to way less testing.
Thanks that review clearly indicates that its not ready for prime time,
Everyone will set their own threshold and maybe even have different thresholds for different applications.
There is a clear indication that in one specifically chosen, but unlikely-in-real-life, use case, space utilisation is poor. This is a bug and there is a discussion of the best way to cure that, and there may even be a work-around, in terms of choosing a specific configuration that avoids it.
This type of thing can happen to any system, but for a stable system, it will be vanishingly rare, for an unstable system it will be quite common, so I don’t see how you can conclude from a single report that it is unready for prime time.
Thanks for that Markone, that was the type of response I was looking for…
Part of the trouble with forums is that we sometimes rush out a reply and type what we think which does not always provide the best response and statements can be a little ambiguous at times. And we end up having to wade through pages of rubbish only to find one or two good tips.
For me in my world, being ready for prime time is simply letting it loose on my laptap lol!