Catastrophic Btrfs failure in opensuse 13.2

English Hardware
1

I had a freshly installed opensuse 13.2 64 bit, kernel 3.16.6-2-desktop. Almost all partitions, including the ones that contained the OS and users’ data, were Btrfs.

I put two hard drives of the computer under heavy load.

After several hours, the OS froze. In some way, I was able to read a message stating that a kernel bug was discovered, in a file from the Btrfs code. The error is reported in bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=906684

That’s all - I gave up on Btrfs. Nothing like that had happened to me with ext3, reiserfs and ext4.

What a shame! After years of reasoning, development, showcasing an array of useful features, big corporations’ support and recommendation by opensuse, we have a complete, catastrophic failure! Did anybody actually bother to deploy and test?

It is interesting that the wiki page of Btrfs says that

“Stability status:
The filesystem disk format is no longer unstable”

Shall the users decide whether “not unstable” is the same as “stable”? Couldn’t they do it themselves?

It is also interesting that there is no list of authors or contributors immediately available on the wiki. I also didn’t dig deep enough to find out who has written such a powerful phrase, “not unstable”. (Probably someone not undereducated in languages?)

In the discussion section of the wiki, there is a question posted in 2013: “AM I GOING TO LOSE MY FILES???” The discussion there continues: “That question is not answered here, but is what one intuitively is looking for. Could that question/answer be entered here, and made prominent, please?”

Well, I am answering now: yes, files may be lost in a routine copy operation.

I wonder whether you are using or going to use Btrfs. Have you heard of big deployments refusing Btrfs? Is Btrfs going the way of reiserfs?

2

The BTRFS kernel bug hit me again.

I was running a laptop booted from opensuse Live 13.2 USB memory stick. After a few minutes, the computer became unresponsive. Some part of the OS’s functionality was gone.

Sure, dmesg reported the same BTRFS kernel bug.

I hope this filesystem will not be used in Live version of the next opensuse, since there is no easy way to change it to ext4 or some other filesystem in the Live OS. Let the authors use and enjoy its multiple benefits in their computers.

There are no updates in the bug report since 2014. Its status is NEW:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89181

I switched to opensuse Live 13.1. Works well.

I wonder whether you have encountered crashes with opensuse Live 13.2 and looked into dmesg?

3

What is openSUSE Live in this scenario? Do you mean the CD?

Curiosity; why do you need it? Wouldn’t it make more sense to remaster the LiveCD/LiveUSB in the SUSE Studio with the latest kernel and patches, hence getting all the updates for it in a convenient image that’s still essentially the same.

4

On 2015-07-09 10:36, ZStefan wrote:

> I wonder whether you have encountered crashes with opensuse Live 13.2
> and looked into dmesg?

Nobody uses the live.

The live is intended for testing. You try the distribution, then install
it, or not, with your choices. The 13.2 live is obsolete, anyway.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

5

I use opensuse Live to troubleshoot computers, especially the ones running Windows. I use the image on a USB stick.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to remaster the LiveCD/LiveUSB in the SUSE Studio with the latest kernel and patches, hence getting all the updates for it in a convenient image that’s still essentially the same.

Yes, but better opensuse distributors do this. Or provide an update.

6

The opensuse 13.2 Live version, which is also usable for installation, is defective because of the Btrfs filesystem usage and shall not be on opensuse’s download website.

Or at least there shall be a warning:
**
“Warning! This product contains a software bug and may not work for you, leading to data loss.”**

It brings no honor to authors to provide users with knowingly and catastrophically defective software.

7

Why? It took me a whole 10 minutes to spin another USB Live version for myself with Kernel 4.x and all other available updates for 13.2. On top of that I was able to integrate other diagnostic tools that aren’t included with the normal LiveCD that I consider important and it all still fits on a 4GB USB3 key.

Personally I think you should just do it and be happy that you can do it so easily.

8

On 2015-07-13 07:26, Miuku wrote:
>
> ZStefan;2719335 Wrote:
>> Yes, but better opensuse distributors do this. Or provide an update.
> Why? It took me a whole 10 minutes to spin another USB Live version for
> myself with Kernel 4.x and all other available updates for 13.2. On top
> of that I was able to integrate other diagnostic tools that aren’t
> included with the normal LiveCD that I consider important and it all
> still fits on a 4GB USB3 key.
>
> Personally I think you should just do it and be happy that you can do it
> so easily.

I wouldn’t know how to do it. It would take me several iterations to get
it right.

I think it would be nice if updated images for, at least, the rescue
image, were provided. After all, it is done for Tumbleweed…

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))