Re: file systems

Chris Brennan <xaero@xaerolimit.net> writes:

[snip]

> No worries, couldn't hurt to read up on CDDL[1], *BSD[2] Licences and
> GNU/GPL [3]. As for your general Filesystem needs, XFS or XFS-LVM is
> probably the smart way to go.
>
> You mentioned something about doing this on USB (solid-state?)
> storage? You might want to also consider reading up on USB's general
> policy about write few, read many. In a nutshell, most USB devices
> don't like to be written to many many times (such as a busy *primary*
> FS). They have a limited shelf-life of writes )wear leveling) before
> they go bad (I have an OCZ ATV rubber thumb drive that has suffered
> this.) This is why they tell you defragmenting SSD's is a *VERY* bad
> idea, you significantly reduce the write ability of the device.[4]
> [5][6]
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distribution_License
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses
> [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive#Advantages_and_disadvantages
> [5] http://www.bress.net/blog/archives/
> 114-How-Long-Does-a-Flash-Drive-Last.html
> [6] http://www.corsairmemory.com/_faq/FAQ_flash_drive_wear_leveling.pdf
>

many thx chris for the links. i was surprised to read this: "one of the
reasons for basing the CDDL on the Mozilla license was that the Mozilla
license is GPL-incompatible."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distribution_License

looking further i saw: "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers the
license a free software license, albeit one with a weak
copyleft. However, "unlike the X11 license" (MIT License) the license
has "some complex restrictions" making it incompatible with the GNU
GPL. They urge people not to use the license because of this
incompatibility unless the provision in section 13 of the MPL is
exercised to provide the work under either the GPL or any other
GPL-compatible license.[2]

For these reasons, the Mozilla Suite and Firefox have been relicensed
under multiple licenses, including the MPL, GPL and LGPL."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License#Compatibility_with_GPL

so that might be why firefox is called iceweasel on debian and nakamoura
on arch.

also, thx for the tips regarding my usb idea. i agree it isn't a good
one for several reasons. we'll stick to regular hard drives for now when
we switch from freebsd to debian in june.

--
in friendship,
prad

No worries, glad to be of help. Open Source Licencing is tricky ... but the provided links should also have given you enough of an idea as to why ZFS+Linux is a slim chance in hell to happen right now ... it would be great to see ZFS in the Linux kernel, natively, but you also need to consider that the BSD world is still contributing heavily to the development of ZFS, so it's also in heavy flux and that combined w/ the licencing of ZFS and the kernel make it a nightmare to try and pull of successfully right now.

You would also need to take into account survivability of the project. ZFS has a huge following but if Oracle were to get a bug up their collective bums and stop public releases of ZFS past v28 then that's all the Open Source community would be left with, is v28 as the most recent release. The *BSD's would no doubt jump on it and fork it in a heartbeat ... but ZFSv28 while stable under most conditions and is feature-rich and very robust, it is not feature-complete yet. ZFS is a great solution, it just isn't really read for prime-time production use yet.

XFS, EXT3 and EXT4 are all great Filesystems to choose from in the meantime. XFS being your actual choice, you will find it to be a very feature-rich, feature-complete and robust FS that is able to grow and scale as you need it. Just remember that it, like any other FS isn't the end-all be-all of Filesystems, always make make room for appropriate backups, hardware failover (multiple redundant RAID Arrays), dump the FS to another RAID Array, and media-backups ... Bluray being ~50Gb/disc makes for an idea solution for appropriately sized FS's.

Keep reading and if you get stuck ... the list is here to help ... even the evangelists and naysayers can point you in the right direction ...

-- 


> A: Yes.
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