Re: ext4 as default FS ?
On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:52:24 +1030
Arthur Marsh <arthur.marsh@internode.on.net> wrote:
> Γιώργος Πάλλας wrote, on 2009-01-25 22:01:
> > Does anybody know when (and if) will ext4 be the default installation
> > filesystem of debian testing?
>
> Besides what the previous respondent said about the need for working
> rescue disks, I believe that there is still more work required in GRUB
> for it to properly identify and read ext4 file systems.
>
grub doesn't work with ext4. it will read files written without the extents
extension, but I don't think that you have a choice of it's use once it is
enabled (and it is one of the main new features of ext4)
There is a patch floating around for grub but it doesn't apply to the current
version and grub isn't developed any more. The future solution is to use grub2.
My guess is that it would take some time, since it was converted from ext4dev
to ext4 in kernel 2.6.28 (not yet in debian), which means that it would be
considered stable enough for a production system probably only around 2.6.29 or
2.6.30 and then you also need grub2 to become the default, dropping grub.
As other people said, there is also no support in rescue disks (I had a problem
with setting up grub when I moved to ext4 and I was lucky that the swap
partition was big enough for another installation so that I could rescue that
one).
My guess is at least a few months still until you see it as an option, probably
a few more until it can become the default.
> Also, as one who has found out the hard way how to use ext3grep to
> recover files, I would not want to use a new file system unless it had
> tools to recover deleted but not overwritten files.
>
> Arthur.
>
>
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