Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Just wondering which one would be better for me to use. What exactly is the maximum file size for each one? I've heard that there can be issues with ReiserFS V3 when an unexpected power failure (which does happen here from time-to-time) occurs. Also, how good is Windows (XP) support for these partitions? Can Windows read from either/both? write to either/both?
Windows cannot read from either natively, however third-party software allows it to. I cannot comment on the quality of this software.
As for the filesystems themselves, ReiserFS is generally better if you have lots of small files (like a mail server.) I have had to do a hard reboot while the hard drive was going crazy. It messed up the FS, but was nothing a little fsck couldn't fix . If you want something super fast and reliable, you could try out reiser4, but it's not very stable yet. You will also need to build and patch a kernel to enable it.
Hope this helps.
So on ReiserFS v3 it's unlikely that any irreversable damage would be done in the event of a sudden power loss?
Very unlikely, I've turned of my computer more than once without unmounting and I've never had a problem. reirserfsck will check it at boot when it's been uncleanly umnount but it's very fast. I usto use ext3, it is much more likely to get messed up on power loss.
There are benchmarks on the web that compare ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs, and jfs. 100 tests or so and reiserfs only lost to ext3 in three or four. In my opinion reiserfs is the best all around fs for linux, without a doubt.
Reiser is okay, Reiser 4 might be better. Hans is a pain in the bum, but his FS is okay I still prefer ext3 for reasons other than performance tho... Mostly backward compatibility and so forth.
Originally posted by chris318 I still prefer ext3 for reasons other than performance tho... Mostly backward compatibility
huh, backwards compatibilty with what? it's a fs, not a program.
backward compatible with ext2...
Backward compatible in that I can boot a tiny distro, or a linux BBC rescue, that only does ext2 and it will still read the ext3 filesystems... There are still a couple that don't come with reiser as a defualt yet, but it's getting better...
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.