Question about btrfs vs ext4?
 

Almost a total linux noob. I played with (for about 2 weeks) Ubuntu 11.04 via the windows installer (wubi?). I quickly got swamped with work and eventually just uninstalled.

I'm going to try again (Suse 13.01). I am told that btrfs is the file system/format I should use. But I'm also told that it isn't "finalized" yet (although safe and stable for everyday use). I've been told that ext4 is the standard but is being phased out. The analogy I was given was FAT32 vs NTFS?

My questions are hopefully simple for a noob to understand the answer and not to difficult for a noob to explain the question.

Is btrfs the way to go? Are the benefits of btrfs over ext4 worth the "non-finalized" issue? Also, if I go with btrfs, when it is finalized, will I have to reinstall or will there be some kind of "update" to move it to the final product? Or because I am again just "playing" with (not for work it's just to learn and hopefully eventually move away from Winblows), is it just better to stick with ext4?

Thank you and any help/advice is very much appreciated.

Many people think that btrfs is not production ready yet, but apparently the openSuse developers think different about that. But while ext4 is older and not as feature rich as btrfs it is indeed very stable and in many cases faster than btrfs. Also, ext4 is far from being faded out.

If you use the advanced features of btrfs, yes, it is the way to go. If you don't use those features you will be fine with ext4.
The filesystem itself is stable and will not change in the near future, what is not finalized yet are all the tools, but work is getting done. So you will not have to reinstall, but you will probably get updated tools (I don't know openSuse's upgrade strategy, it may be possible that you will get those tools in a future release).
It doesn't really matter, if you don't play with the features of the underlying filesystem usually the only time you think about the filesystem is when choosing which to use at install time.

ext4 being phased out? ext4 was just phased in a few years ago, it's not going away for a long time.

btrfs is still under heavy development, it'll be a while yet before things calm down. For example, these are the updates in the 3.12 kernel:
OpenSUSE 13.1 is still using the 3.11 kernel, Debian is using 3.2, RHEL is using 2.6.35, etc.

Personally, I would give it more time before moving to btrfs, but that's just me. For some things cutting-edge is fine, but I prefer my filesystems to be nice and established.

I have used btrfs for years, but on most systems I also use ext4.
I would generally recommend ext4 for a new user - if you need support, you'll generally get more sensible answers (from community lists like LQ) for ext4.

However ... it's a good filesystem, and if you have to learn everything (about Linux in general) from scratch, and are prepared to put in some effort, btrfs might certainly be worth a try. Both btrfs and ext4 are continuing development, and having new features added.
Try the btrfs wiki for some info if interested.

I tend to use btrfs but I'm pretty sure OpenSuse doesn't use it by default. You will end up having to use snapper application a lot.

If you are worried then use ext4, nothing wrong with it.

After reading the replies and browsing the wiki (which honestly is over my head) I think I'm going to stick with the ext4. If it's working for all/most distros and it's going to be around for awhile then I see no reason to go with the btrfs. The btrfs has features what sound very promising if you need them but being as this is a learning machine and it's not uber-important that I know btrfs I'll go with the "standard."

Thank you for everyone who posted and for the opinions. Very much appreciated.

They don't, but they explicitly state that they see it as production ready and that they discuss using it as default in the next release.

I assume that you mean 13.1 (released yesterday, and, therefore, pretty new). Certainly, if you want to use BTRFS, there is a case for using something pretty new, because development is pretty rapid, and you'll get more of the new features. But, should you? Well, I'd say probably not.

If you want/need the extra features of BTRFS (and the flavour I get is that you don't know how you'd use them, so that's probably a 'no') and/or if you have an application that separates the operating system installation from storage (again, my impression is probably no) then consider it.

If you just want a simple answer that doesn't add to the learning curve, go ext4. It doesn't add any complex concepts and it just works. On the other hand, if you have a real need for the advanced features or you are a confirmed techie who has to work with the latest and coolest, irrespective of some pain getting there, then BTRFS is there for you (actually, you are probably a little bit late, but that can't be cured now for BTRFS, but you can always use F2FS on your SSD and experiment with the more advanced configuration options of BTRFS).

I'd describe that as a bad or incomplete answer to the question that you asked here, but maybe you had to be there (eg, there was some extra context, or less clarification of your current status).

PLease don't use custom tags (like "[Answered!]") for marking your threads, please use the thread tools (right above your first post) to mark threads as solved.

DTFan writes,

"but being as this is a learning machine and it's not uber-important that I know btrfs"

This is logical. Learn the other stuff first. Btrfs is like extra credit just yet.

I found it interesting to see an "answered" in there. What TobiSGD means is to use the solved button maybe.


""What we have done in openSUSE 13.1 is include new Btrfs features," Bethencourt said. " Some of them are ready for production environments and some still need more stabilization effort; this is why Btrfs is not the default file system in openSUSE 13.1." http://www.serverwatch.com/server-ne...e-quality.html November 19, 2013