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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What's with all these hip filesystems and how are they different? (lm.paradisus.day)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by rutrum@lm.paradisus.day to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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You know, ZFS, ButterFS (btrfs...its actually "better" right?), and I'm sure more.

I think I have ext4 on my home computer I installed ubuntu on 5 years ago. How does the choice of file system play a role? Is that old hat now? Surely something like ext4 has its place.

I see a lot of talk around filesystems but Ive never found a great resource that distiguishes them at a level that assumes I dont know much. Can anyone give some insight on how file systems work and why these new filesystems, that appear to be highlights and selling points in most distros, are better than older ones?

Edit: and since we are talking about filesystems, it might be nice to describe or mention how concepts like RAID or LUKS are related.

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[–] Cwilliams@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Not sure about the other ones, but I use Btrfs because of subvolumes and backups.

Subvolumes are like special folders inside of your partition that mount separately. Ex. In my btrfs partition, I have a @home partition that is mounted to /home

This makes it easier to choose what you are backing up, because you can say, "just copy everything in @home to the backup location"

If I got any of that wrong, feel free to correct me!

[–] zephr_c@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I mean, is it actually easier to copy everything in @home than it is to copy everything in /home? Btrfs has always kinda felt like it's a bunch of extra steps to solve problems I don't have.

[–] mindfive@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Kinda. You can copy your snapshots from @home too, meaning a restore from backup also restores your local file version history. There are also tools to push snapshots around as a large archive instead of dealing with smaller files directly.

The COW can also reduce the chances of running rsync on a large file that is currently being accessed, and getting a partial file in your backup. Or I suck at rsync 🤷‍♂️

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You're right, atomic snapshots are a big advantage of CoW fs.

Rsync backups done while the system is running have a chance of being broken, while CoW fs snapshots are instant and seem basically as if the system suddenly lost power.

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