[NTLUG:Discuss] Need Distro Recommendation, Please

[Rick Matthews]

Ralph,

Thank you for taking the time to explain this so well.

Rick


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ralph Green, Jr. [mailto:sfreader at sbcglobal.net]
> Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 12:23 AM
> To: NTLUG Discussion List
> Cc: Rick Matthews
> Subject: RE: [NTLUG:Discuss] Need Distro Recommendation, Please
> 
> 
> Howdy,
>   All three of those meet my standards for feature
> completeness of a journaling filesystem.  I use all
> three, but not just anywhere.  Reiser3 is a pretty
> good design, but it gets a lot of patches and it
> seems a little hit or miss as to whether you can get
> a reliable install of it.  I want a filesystem with
> the right features and performance, but it absolutely
> has to be reliable.  SuSE uses Reiser3 as their
> default filesystem and they are careful about the
> patches they put out for it.  I trust Reiser3 on
> SuSE, and regularly  use it there.  I have tried it
> on a few other distros, but I don't really trust it
> anywhere else.  Reiser 4 is even more interesting in
> terms of design, but it is not nearly stable enough
> for anything but testing.  I am looking forward to
> using it in future years along with some innovative
> plugins
>   XFS and JFS are pretty good on just about any distro
> I have tried.  I use them both.  I like the design of
> JFS a lttle more, but some distros favor XFS.  For
> example, when reading forums on Debian, I regularly
> see references to developers using XFS, but rarely
> JFS.  So, on Debian(and its off-shoots like Ubuntu),
> I usually use XFS.
>   There is an odd thing about filesystem support other
> than ext3 on CentOS4/TaoLinux4/RHEL4/Fedora that I
> have not figured out.  I understand that only works
> with ext3.  But, I have tried installing CentOS4 and
> Fedora Core 2 and 3 on XFS and JFS.  I pass the kernel
> parameters needed to the installer.  I get the option
> to create my root filesystem as I want.  I choose to
> not install SELinux.  The installer always fails when
> the first files are being copied to the root
> filesystem.  What does this mean?  I can see two
> possibilities.  One is the the installer uses a
> SELinux kernel and so it cannot write to a JFS or
> XFS filesystem.  That seems pretty stupid on the part
> of whoever incorporated SELinux into the installer.
> The second option is just that the installer is broken
> with respect to installing on other filesystems.  Maybe
> the core developers are so satisfied with ext3 that it
> never occurred to them to actually test installing on
> another filesystem. Since the core developers are
> really RedHat people and RedHat developed ext3, maybe
> there is just no internal interest in using more
> advanced filesystems.  My hunch is that option 2 is
> right, but I have not pursued it.  I remember that we
> have a member of NTLUG who was working on the Fedora
> X64 port.  Perhaps, he will see this message and
> comment.
>  I think this message has gotten long enough, so I
> won't add much more.  When you are choosing a
> filesystem, there are a number of factors to consider.
> Each filesystem has some advantages.  I don't know if
> you have a Computer Science background or not, but if
> you do, I'd suggest you do a little research online
> and you should be able to find some pretty good
> papers describing the design of the various
> filesystems.  
> Good luck,
> Ralph
> 
> On Sat, 2005-04-30 at 12:32 -0500, Rick Matthews wrote:
> > Your last post was information-packed and much appreciated! I feel 
> > like I am proving that no good deed goes unpunished by asking for more:
> > What is your preference over ext3, (reiserfs? xfs? jfs?) and what OS
> > is needed to avoid "poor filesystem support"?
> > 
>