Which filesystem will you use for root on your next Slackware installation?
 

By root I mean the root of your Slackware installation: /

I have restricted the choices to those offered by Slackware 14's installer.

Maybe if a vast majority shows for one of the filesystems, could we request Pat to make that one built-in in the -generic kernels of Slackware 14.1. This would allow the "majority" to use a -generic kernel without an initrd.

EDIT Just to clarify a bit: this thread's goal is not to collect statistics about filesystems used in existing installations (this has already been done, as one of us pointed out) but merely what will be your choice for the next installation - the very next, that's why only one choice is allowed.

I think you've forgotten to include the poll.

Edit: ext4

I've never experimented with different filesystems, always choose the default. So probably ext4.

Sorry, I type slowly - but you can vote now.

The filesystem is not the only stuff you need to build into the initrd for some machines to work correctly. Here's an IBM X225 server's mkinitrd.conf, for example:

On a Panasonic Toughbook, mkinitrd.conf looks like this:

Looks to me like the KISS way of doing things here is:

1. Finish the install but don't reboot yet.
2. Exit the installer.
3. Chroot into the installed system.
4. Run mkinitrd.conf-generator.sh to see what you need.
5. Edit mkinitrd.conf.
6. Build the initrd.
7. Edit lilo.conf.
8. Run 'lilo'.
9. Exit the chrooted environment.
10. Reboot.

This should all take no more than a couple of minutes.

You should have made the poll in the way that I can choose multiple answers. When Slackware 14 is released I will make clean installations on all my systems and I planned to go for ext4 on LVM on my workstation and the file-server, ext2 on the 4GB SSD in my eeePC 701 and also to give btrfs a try on my laptop. Since I will have two systems (and later on probably the laptop) with ext4 I voted for that.

Btrfs, for its SSD optimizations.

Not having any special needs ext4 is my choice. If I need to recover / or access data which is on an encrypted LVM I want to make sure any thumb drive I boot has the tools needed to mount the volume. Btrfs sounds great but hasn't proven itself yet. ReiserFS? Well, it's a dead issue isn't it? Even before the conviction Linus had reasons not to want Reiser4 in the kernel.

DNA
AFA mrascii

@kikinovak: your approach is of course recommendable. But most beginners will choose the default huge kernel at time of installation and don't know what an initrd is. And not all of them will read the relevant documentation before proceeding.

I'm trying out XFS on my laptop running 14.0. I know the 128 gig SSD kind of contradicts the idea of 'large and lots' but it seems to be working ok.

I watched this presentation on XFS, and it sounds like in recent kernels XFS is as good as ext4 in the areas ext4 traditionally was stronger, and is still stronger in the areas XFS has been traditionally stronger.

Honestly though, I haven't really noticed a difference. It's been stable and fast, 14.0 is looking like the best slackware yet :)

Ditto!

I use EXT4 only as a boot partition for /boot.

BtrFS is my new bread and butter file system for /(root).

I voted ext4 and will probably use it, but I have installed RC5 with ext3 only so that I can mount it under my Slackware 12.1 system in which I have never updated my kernel to support ext4 :)

ext4 has worked for me in what I need.

.

XFS except for my maildir directories. Those are reiserfs.

I will use JFS as usual. Maybe when btrfs gets a working fsck I will try it.

aufs3 (tmpfs over squashfs in ext2).

It have at least a not very well tested version now: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index....k_like_tool.3F

Yes, but it is experimental. I will wait a bit.

I prefer jfs, also use ext4. I have more that one Slackware (almost 14.0) install. :)

If you use XFS you got to be really careful that you never write a boot sector to the XFS partition, based on what I have read some. XFS uses the partition right from the very first sector, and so writing a boot sector like with lilo by mistake will destroy the XFS filesystem. I don't think ext4 has this gotcha.

I didn't include it in the list as it is not shipped in Slackware (it's not included in kernels provided by Linus), let alone proposed by Slackware's installer. The same would apply to Reiser4, though nobody mentioned it in this thread (yet).

I was a happy user of reiserfs for few years - never experienced any serious problems. Few weeks ago I reformatted my root partition to ext4 after reading a thread about above-mentioned filesystems on LQ. Time will show if it was a right move. I'm still using reiserfs for my home partition.
I choose ext4, although I probably won't install 14.0 from scratch (I'm using current right now).

Been using ext4 without issue since the release of 13.37 so I see no reason to change.

ext4

in the past I used Reiserfs

I've always been using the ext-filesystems beginning with ext2 back in the old days. So I will stay with ext4 when I perform fresh installs with the new Slackware-14.

Markus

Yet another poll of such question.

Depending on situation: on isolated system - ReiserFS, if Windows is neighbour - ext3.

Out of curiosity : why different choices depending on that?

For my own peace of mind, installing lilo to the MBR avoids this issue, correct?

ext4 just because I've never used anything else

Slackware + Ext4 = WIN!

The results of the poll so far are not surprising. Having read this thread I might actually give btrfs a try with ssd.

If you have installed XFS to the raw disk (e.g. /dev/sda) and write lilo to it with lilo.config "boot = /dev/sda", then XFS will be trashed.

If you have installed XFS to the partition (e.g. /dev/sda1) and write lilo to it with lilo.config "boot = /dev/sda1", the XFS wil lbe trashed! LOL!

But okay... if you write a lilo MBR to /dev/sda only, while having XFS on partition /dev/sda1 then I believe you are okay. You get the idea though... it is just that some documents talk about writing lilo boot sector into a partition and doing things like install a MS-DOS or other bootloader into /dev/sda that chain bootloads lilo installed in say /dev/sda1! You cannot do such a thing with XFS installed there. This is an issue that will bit people that try to use XFS as a root filesystem and try to put lilo into the volume/partition boot sector with XFS and maybe chain/multiboot to it while they run Windows and other OSes inside other partitions.

So, with different filesystems, there is the question: Is this filesystem compatible with having a boot sector installed at the head of it? The question is most important for multiboot/chainbootloading.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_boot_record

Interesting.. I've got it set up with a single XFS '/' partition at /dev/sda1 with LiLo installed to the MBR. Things seems to work fine, but I'm not doing any multi-boot or chain loading.

There is ext2/3/4 File System driver for Windows, but not for ReiserFS. So if there is Windows in dualboot, both Windows and Linux have full access to each others partitions. If no Windows, ReiserFS is my choice.
If you, or somebody else know about ReiserFS driver for Windows it will do me a favour.

I choose ext4. This is stable and simple. But I don't have a specific requirements for filesystems. I use Slackware in home, on desktop.

Just to clarify a bit: this thread's goal is not to collect statistics about filesystems used in existing installations (this has already been done, as one of us pointed out) but merely what will be your choice for the next installation - the very next, that's why only one choice is allowed.

That would mean that my answer is dependent on with which device I decide to start after the release of 14, wouldn't it? Since I currently think I will start with the laptop my answer should have been btrfs, not ext4.

@TobiSGD: That's my fault, I should have been clearer from the beginning. I edited the first post accordingly.

Also onstalling to an ssd but not convinced from my googling that any advantage to be had from btrfs and ext4 with journaling should be fine.

Alan

ext4

<Off Topic>I just saw in Phoronix news that Reiser4 has been ported to Linux 3.5.3. Adventurous among us, feel free to apply the patch. I won't.</Off Topic>

Reiser4 is probably fair enough to say, dead in the water.

I'd rather risk the wrath of Richard Stallman and add ZFS support.

That is correct.

It is for this very reason I will be formatting my small root partition with an ext3 filesystem - I chainload from NetBSD and need Lilo installed to Slackware's root, not the MBR.

usr, var, home and other partitions will be formatted with XFS.

I have chosen ext4, because / is a filesystem, where not much action happens. On my typical Slackware installation it contains between 0.3 and 0.5 GB of data, which is mostly only read on boot and almost never written to. So I see no point in using btrfs or something else there.

Of course, /var, /home, /opt and /usr are a different story, but that was not question.