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.

1 members found this post helpful.

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.