GNU bug report logs - #40236
[PATCH] doc: Suggest Btrfs with compression instead of ext4 for root partition.

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From: Pierre Neidhardt <mail <at> ambrevar.xyz>
To: Jonathan Brielmaier <jonathan.brielmaier <at> web.de>, Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 40236 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: [bug#40236] [PATCH] doc: Suggest Btrfs with compression instead of ext4 for root partition.
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:07:50 +0200

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Jonathan Brielmaier <jonathan.brielmaier <at> web.de> writes:

> No, I did run openSUSE on btrfs, there was no Guix involved at all. But
> btrfs seemed to be the root case of all my troubles (performance,
> hang-ups etc).

When did you try this?  Maybe some issues have been fixed in the
meantime.
I've used Btrfs on a few computers for many months now and it's been a
bliss.  Of course experiences vary ;)

>>> Further do we need all this rollback stuff from btrfs if we have it
>>> already in Guix?
>>
>> Btrfs has many benefits over Ext3:
>>
>> it offers compression to about 30% on average, it supports subvolumes,
>> snapshots and snapshot syncing, and much more.
>
> Snapshots did fill up my disk.

What do you mean?

> I had no use for them on my laptop. On a
> Guix System even less, because you have rollbacks from the package
> manager :)

Snapshots are not just for rollbacks: you can sync them across the
network to a remote machine.  This allows you to deploy disk images very
fast.

>> For all these reasons I believe Btrfs is a good default for the OSes of tomorrow! :)
>
> So maybe create a config for the OSes of tomorrow: btrfs, wireguard,
> rust etc :P

In the end, what I'm suggesting is this issue is merely a
recommendation.

Currently Guix is very annoying to use on small Ext4 partitions, e.g. a
64 GiB SSD.  With compression on, you suddenly get 3x more space for
your /gnu/store :)

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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