Is reiserfs more efficient that ext3?
I'm planning to reinstall slack and i don't know what fs i should use.
The last time i used reiserfs.
My problem is that partition magic does not support reiser fs and i will have problems if i want to resize it. Also the tool to read this from windows is not gui.
I prefer explore2fs. When i'm in linux i use the console a lot more that the window managers, but in windows i can't get used to use cmd. It sucks anyway...

this might help you decide:
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/212/

I wanna try reiser4.. but.. considering that it's not quite stable yet and will require a patch and recompile.. not to mention doing a backup and migrating my entire filesystem.. urgh..

It depends on what you are going to do.

My own experience: Ext3 fails badly on large partitions (>25 GB) when you frequently try to copy large files (>100 MB or so) to and from it. On smaller partitions or with smaller files it hasn't caused problems on my machines.


Eg, if you have a backup partition where you put large tar archives, XFS would be an excellent file system choice. Fast, reliable, and it doesn't slow down your machine during file transfers.

ReiserFS 3 and before is not a true journaling file system, but it has never let me down.

The overall winner, however, in a comparison benchmark done by Linux New Media (publishers of Linux Magazin, Linux User and more) was JFS. It was top 3 in every benchmark. However, it's not part of the Slackware default kernel as far as I know....

gargamel

I never considered jfs... sorry for stealing the thread perfect_circle...
but does anyone have any real experience or benchmarks for reiser4?
I'm seriously considering using it.. I'd like to at least hear from someone who has tried it..

Thank you all for your replies. I guess i'll stay with reiserFs. I never had any problem with it at all...

here's some benchmarks:

http://www.namesys.com/benchmarks.html

http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html

i have slackware 10.x and i'm using reiserfs 3 which is what has been used in slackware for a long time and believe me, it's journaling ;-) perhaps you could explain why you say it isn't a "true journaling file system"?? AFAIK, the one that isn't "really" journaling is ext3, as it's basically just ext2 with a journaling layer added on top of it (good for backwards compatibility with ext2)...

i'd assume slackware 11.x will come with reiser4 (perhaps not as default, but at least as an option) if reiser4 is stable enough by that time...

i'd also like to say that i think there's a reason why reiserfs is currently the default filesystem on slackware: it's cuz it blows most of the other filesystems clear out of the water!!

reiserfs vs. ext3: no-contest, IMHO... Hans Reiser rules!!

=)

...

reiser3 isn't a real journalling fs because it doesn't have a "real" journal.. but it compensates quite well
ext3 really is a journalling fs.. even if it was stacked onto ext2

[using reiser4] WHOO!!
also I'm not gonna trust first-party benchmarks.. ever... but luckily you provided others.. either way.. I have switched and I must say that my bootup was quite a bit faster and I'm very impressed overall.. it also appears to use space much more effeciently than ext3 and reiser3

okay, i'm intrigued... what makes a "real" journal?? and how is the ext3 journal more "real" than reiser's?? and how does reiser "compensate"??

AFAIK, a journaling filesystem is one which keeps track of pending changes/transactions so that if there is an interruption (such as a crash, power outage, etc.) the changes/transactions will be completed as soon as the journal is replayed... so it would seem to me that you either have a journal or you don't... i would really appreciate it if you could elaborate somewhat... i'm really curious about this...

as for the benchmarks i posted, all i did was a simple google... try it and you'll see there's lots of third-party reiserfs benchmarks all over the web...

in that sense.. it is.. it has many mechanisms that have a similar effect as a journal and uses them in the same way as a journal.. while ext3 has a real journal in the conventional sense..

amusingly enough, the information you're looking for is in the article linked to in the second post..

Reiser4 has full journal support

I know that LBT has some real issues with Reiser4 so I doubt it will appear in the kernel anytime soon. Basically, Linus feels that Resier and Co. haven't really thought out the consequences of the changes made in Reiser4 . Google on Linus and Reiser4 and watch the sparks fly! <g>

Dennisk

... I for one don't have a problem with patching..

I found reiser is alot more stable than ext3, I have a problem with alot of power outages and stuff in this small town (I should invest in an UPC) and I like to play around and experiment with linux quite a bit (and often hardlock my system) anyhow, ext3 doesn't recover well if a file system isn't unmounted cleanly. reiserfs always recovers nicely. (as per my experience)

I've had quite a few problems with reiserfs. nothing serious. but EVERY time I get around to running reiserfsck it detects something that requires me to use rebuild-tree. it's never killed my data though.. so.. it's still really good