Hello, all. I hope to be migrating my desktop system to Linux sometime in the near future, motivated partially by certain unnerving behavior of my current OS (files marked "read-only" can apparnetly be changed if the software in question uses the "wrong" API). I have skimmed several "Which Linux Distro Is Best" posts and found them quite useful. I have experience using Slackware to run a firewall/mail server/web server/what-have-you but no experience with Linux desktop systems.

My supplementary question is as follows:

Does anyone have any opinions on the pros and cons of filesystems? I have seen ext2, ext3, and reiserfs used; I have been using ext3 on an uninformed, random selection. My only real requirement is journaling, but getting opinions on that sort of thing seems a good idea.

Many thanks, and good day to you.

http://jamesthornton.com/hotlist/linux-filesystems/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems
http://staff.osuosl.org/~kveton/fs/

Also, search google. "linux filesystem comparison" should come up with lots of hits. Also try variations with "benchmark", etc.

Many thanks. I hit Google but didn't come up with much. I got plenty of hits but they all seemed to be related to specific cases rather than a general, partially subjective review.

From my cursory examination, it seems that ResierFS v4 is the best option. It's especially appealing as it manages to avoid the problem that I frequently experience on my development system: large numbers of small files taking lots more disk space than strictly necessary as a result of clustering.

Thanks again!

yea, pick what works best, ext2/3 broke when i first used it for no reason, so i use reiserfs. For others, reiserfs broke for no reason, so they only use ext2/3.

all in all, reiserfs4 seems like the best file system around, with the plugin system it has. Now just have to wait for people to come up with some interesting and useful plugins. But im not sure if its the best one, the earlyer 3.* versions found in the kernel might be more stable, both are exeptional at small files, and fine with big ones. Hmm, but i havent looked up at reiserfs4 for quite some time, maybe its out of beta? if it is, i think ill go give it try, it does seem to be the most advanced fs around.

Just be careful with a filesystem that's so new (Reiser4) "We must caution that just as Linux 2.6 is not yet as stable as Linux 2.4, it will also be some substantial time before V4 is as stable as V3." (http://www.namesys.com/)

Out of interest what do you mean by this? In Linux root can override any permissions if they want, since by definition root as able to do anything on the system.

My thoughts:

I would not go for Reiser4 just yet. I'm too conservative. Wait until it's aged a bit more. For something as basic as a filesystem I don't want to be on the bleeding edge.

Reiser3. I've never used it, but from my research this would probably be my choice for a general purpose filesystem now. Also from my research, I don't think Reiser3 is too good with a small number of very large files. I'm looked at it from a MythTV video recording perspective (which I'm installing now). For this application, JFS or XFS seem to come with higher recommendations. Better with the big files. I'm not sure what these would add over Reiser for general purpose filesystems. Haven't researched that part.

Ext3. This is what I'm using now for my base Debian system. Just because it appeared to be the default when I last installed Debian (or maybe I made the choice, I don't really remember). No reason to choose it, no reason NOT to choose it ... as best I can determine. Stable, but possibly slower or less flexible than newer filesystems for some/all tasks.

Ext2. Non-journelling. I would not consider this.

Of course, YMMV! ;-)

[edit]
One other thing I forgot to add above. If you plan on using LVM, check each filesystem type to see what they support as far as growing or shrinking. I think I remember reading that XFS only allows you to grow a filesystem, never shrink it. I may be wrong about this, or it might not even matter to you.
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