ext3 and Reiserfs (was Re: Some of my Kubuntu-Hoary tweaks )

[Abdullah Ramazanoglu]

Justin Mason dedi ki:
> Abdullah Ramazanoglu writes:
  --8<--

>> It's beyond my knowledge to make a precise and definitive pros/cons
>> analysis on ext3 vs reiserfs. If I were a Kubuntu dev with this
>> knowledge, then I would do a final, definitive analysis and exclusively
>> use either ext3 or reiser, with or without cron-syncing, for the best
>> stability possible. This would both save some CD space and provide a
>> system whose FS resilience can't be compromised by rather less informed
>> user preferences during installation.
> 
> I really don't think that's wise -- there's more to filesystem choice
> than stability and efficiency.  For example, at one stage I maintained an
> actively-used partition formatted as fat32, despite its lousy performance
> in linux -- because it was shareable between Win32 and linux when
> dual-booting. Reducing filesystem choice has many side-effects.

Many people, particularly new converts, have dual boot (fat32/ntfs) system,
which makes them unavoidable. So I have no questions regarding whether
fat32 or ntfs should be included in the CD.

But for ext3/reiserfs/xfs/jfs as the root FS, the perspective changes a
bit. Sure there are people with secondary partitions with various FS on
their disks, and there are FS fans who would want to have a root partition
with their favorite FS. But if a particular FS is conclusively decided to
be overall best as the root FS for a "casual desktop" distro (a
presumption about Kubuntu) then it might be quite conceivable to, err...
"force" it on the root partition. As I've said earlier, exceptional
(minority) users can always install other FS support for secondary
partitions.

It would provide both,
- CD space savings (OK, not much),
- An uncompromisable, pre-engineered/built-in resilience to root FS,
- And easier installation procedure.

I can imagine a newbie facing the question of which FS type to choose from,
while installing. For many (among the masses I presume Kubuntu is
targeting), ext3 or reiser or xfs or jfs, etc might mean nothing but some
garbled names. They might choose just about any FS type at random, and
then complain about this or that problem...

So, even if other FS support is also included in the CD, I believe the
installer should hide them in an "Advanced Choices" submenu or something.
-- 
Abdullah Ramazanoglu
aramazan ÄT myrealbox D0T cöm