OK, we all have been using ext3 for almost 10 years now.. and as we all know Ext4 file system is comming or is already out..

Well so my question is.. Is Ext4 finished and stable and all or not?

It's already in the alpha versions of the next Ubuntu, and it is implemented in the most recent version of the System Rescue CD. I can't say whether that means it is stable though.

Robin

Well according to Wikipedia it was released as stable within the 2.6.28 kernel on christmas day 2008, but then you know wikipedia, doesn't mean it's correct...

exactly. I've been reading some articles in wikipedia but i mean it's wiki..

Does anyone know if Ext4 will be included in openSuSE 11.2?

It's stable, you can start converting your file system (except /boot, that might cause some problems).
Been using Ext4 for about a week now with no negative comments at all.

It's stable, it's also probable that Patrick Volkerding will suggest to upgrade to Ext4 filesystem for the next distro(I think slackware 13.0), ubuntu alpha already uses ext3 filesystem and new distros do it. Any way, wikipedia is right You can upgrade right now and use newer distros with ext4, I'm curious to try it.

Here's the site for obtaining the code:
http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.ph...ting_Ext4_code

I ran it in Ubuntu 9.04 but was plagued with issues and an Nvidia driver. So, Could'nt state on stability.

Was a lot faster drive access, though.

I had nothing but issues , however I dont know if this was due to Ubuntu 9.04 or the file system. Strangely enough it operated seamlessly in a virtual box, however when I went live it crashed pretty consistently. I think for production purposes Im going to stick it out with ZFS and solaris for a while, and when 9.04 steps up I will jump ship to ext4.

Regards,
JKZfixme

ext4 has been out and perfectly stable since day-0, when 2.6.28 was released.

It's also possible to migrate your ext3 volumes to ext4 without any problem. The kernel has nothing to do with one distro or another. As long as you stick to stable kernels that are >=.28, everything will be fine. If you use(d) any previous -unstable- code then you'll have issues. Note that ext4dev is still retained in these new versions until everyone has done the full migration, though it's equivalent to ext4 itself and equally stable.

Using the latest e2fs tools is also a must.

Ext4 has been in the kernel as the unstable ext4dev for a long long time, and when they decided to stabilize it it's because it's ready for production environments.

Weeellll - that's from a kernel devs perspective.
For those of us that thrive on "latest and greatest", it's fine. For production .... ???
Anyway, who the hell would have that kernel in production already ? ...

I am not talking about rc's or git. I am talking about stable releases.

Those kernels are stable. That your distro of choice didn't include them into their repos doesn't mean a thing about the stability of the kernel.

No doubt that you need to make tests, and no doubt that if you plan to change the fs layout on any serious machine, first you need to test the new fs on a controlled environment. That's regardless of the kernel you use, no matter if you download it from linux or your distro's repositories.

So, that's besides the point.

Well, no software that is in use is finished, except in the sense that 'development has finished because no one is prepared to do it anymore'.

I am not a slackware user, but I regard that as a more useful indication of stability than anything to do with Ubuntu.

I don't think that I would be intending to do that: there is an easy upgrade path from ext3 to ext4, but I am not aware of one from ext4 to BTRFS and BTRFS is probably where I would like to be, long term.

Incidentally, I am impressed by the long-term potential of BTRFS because it seems to be designed along similar lines to ZFS, and, from what I have read, ZFS sounds like an impressive piece of work, so if I was currently on ZFS I am not sure what would be driving me to change, unless I wanted to get away from (Open)Solaris/Sun for other reasons.

There's an easy way from ext3 to btrfs though. So you can use ext3 in the while.

http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.p...sion_from_Ext3

There's a possibility that in the future you can convert from ext4 as well, since ext4 shares a lot with ext3, and btrfs is still very young.