Welcome, Guest. Please Login
 
  HomeHelpSearchLogin FAQ Radified Ghost.Classic Ghost.New Bootable CD Blog  
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print
EXT4 file system (Read 8258 times)
Rad
Radministrator
*****
Offline


Sufferin' succotash

Posts: 4090
Newport Beach, California


Back to top
EXT4 file system
Mar 29th, 2009 at 12:44am
 
Was snooping into upcoming Ubuntu 9.04, due to be released ~3 weeks:

Noticed they addd sppt for ext4, even tho ext3 will still be default file system.

This is first I heard of ext4.

You heard anything?

Quote:
Ubuntu 9.04 Beta supports the option of installing the new ext4 file system. ext3 will remain the default filesystem for Jaunty, and we will consider ext4 as the default for the next release based on user feedback. There has been extensive discussion about the reliability of applications running on ext4 in the face of sudden system outages. Applications that use the conventional approach of writing data to a temporary file and renaming it to its final location will have their reliability expectations met in Ubuntu 9.04 beta; further discussion is ongoing in the kernel community.

Ext4 support in GRUB was provided by Colin King. If you choose to upgrade your / or /boot filesystem in place from ext2 or ext3 to ext4 (as documented on the ext4 wiki), then you must also use the grub-install command after upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 Beta to reinstall your boot loader. If you do not do this, then the version of GRUB installed in your boot sector will not be able to read the kernel from the ext4 filesystem and your system will fail to boot.

Ext4 support in gparted has been provided by Curtis Gedak.


http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/beta (scroll down ~ half-way)
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 

MrMagoo
Übermensch
*****
Offline


Resident Linux Guru

Posts: 1026
Phoenix, AZ (USA)


Back to top
Re: EXT4 file system
Reply #1 - Mar 29th, 2009 at 3:16am
 
They've been working on ext4 for a while.  Its the next incrementation of ext2/3. 

I wouldn't use it yet, based on the discussions I've seen.  There are a lot of applications that rely on certain quirks about how ext3 works.  Ext4 follows a few standards a little more strictly, eliminating those quirks.  The result is that you could loose data.

There aren't any big advantages in ext4 over ext3.  It is supposed to be faster/newer/better but running on a virtual machine, you won't see the improvement. 

The discussions are hot and heavy about how to handle the issues, but most distributions won't be moving to ext4 as the default file system for at least a few years (I guessing here.)

If you want to play around with file systems, you should try to play around with ZFS.  Sun wrote it and has been using it for years in Solaris.  They open-sourced it in the last year or so.  Everyone is pretty excited to get it on their favorite OS.  It is supposed to be fast and very fault tolerant, and has some cool features other file systems just don't offer in any form.

XFS is fun to.  It is written by IBM (I think.)  My buddy did some informal (but extensive) benchmarks and found XFS to beat out RiserFS and ext3 performance-wise.

I always use ext3 for linux, ntfs for windows, and fat32 for compatibility.  The advantages of anything else on a desktop are minor compared to have lots of memory, a newer CPU, using RAID or SCSI, etc.
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
MrMagoo
Übermensch
*****
Offline


Resident Linux Guru

Posts: 1026
Phoenix, AZ (USA)


Back to top
Re: EXT4 file system
Reply #2 - Mar 29th, 2009 at 3:17am
 
By the way, I've found 9.04 to be fairly stable as a beta.  Every version of Ubuntu gets cooler.  It's playing with if you are running it on a virtual box anyway.
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
Rad
Radministrator
*****
Offline


Sufferin' succotash

Posts: 4090
Newport Beach, California


Back to top
Re: EXT4 file system
Reply #3 - Mar 29th, 2009 at 8:13am
 
MrMagoo wrote on Mar 29th, 2009 at 3:17am:
It's playing with if you are running it on a virtual box anyway.

I think when the official version is released (~3 weeks), I'll d/l a VM.

MrMagoo wrote on Mar 29th, 2009 at 3:16am:
They've been working on ext4 for a while.

So you've heard of it. This is the first I've heard of it.

BTW - do you hold any certifications, Linux or otherwise?

MrMagoo wrote on Mar 29th, 2009 at 3:16am:
It is supposed to be fast and very fault tolerant

Would seem thse two would be mutually exclusive .. that the overhead to make it more fault-tolerant would also slow it down.
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
MrMagoo
Übermensch
*****
Offline


Resident Linux Guru

Posts: 1026
Phoenix, AZ (USA)


Back to top
Re: EXT4 file system
Reply #4 - Mar 29th, 2009 at 8:57am
 
Rad wrote on Mar 29th, 2009 at 8:13am:
do you hold any certifications, Linux or otherwise?

I have the RHCT (Red Hat Certified Technician).  I also have CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate).   I'm working on my CCNP.

Certifications are a great way to get started in an industry.  Once you get going, you resume starts to tell it's own story.  You have to balance learning what Red Hat/Cisco/CompTIA want you to know with what is actually useful on an every day basis. 

That's not to say that these certifications don't focus on everyday skills, but it's nearly impossible to create a certification test that is both narrowly focused on your product and broadly applicable to an entire career field.

What makes you ask?
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
MrMagoo
Übermensch
*****
Offline


Resident Linux Guru

Posts: 1026
Phoenix, AZ (USA)


Back to top
Re: EXT4 file system
Reply #5 - Mar 29th, 2009 at 9:02am
 
Rad wrote on Mar 29th, 2009 at 8:13am:
Would seem thse two would be mutually exclusive .. that the overhead to make it more fault-tolerant would also slow it down.

If only it were that simple.  Data is cached several times before being read or written to disk.  There is CPU cache, memory, the HD cache, temporary files, etc.  Topics like this make me miss Nigel, but suffice to say that its not as simple as read/write.  Sun does some very advanced stuff, and they give a lot of it away for free these days.  Sometimes I wonder how they make money.
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print