Linus Torvalds Doesn't Recommend Using ZFS On Linux

[blacknova]

Well, it finally come to this. Not what that was unknown before - Linux kernel outside of LTS releases has unstable internal API. So it is not really surprising that during development anything out of tree that relies on internal API is not taken into account. Linus is also technically right that to import new modules into kernel tree they would need to confirm to kernel tree requirements, i.e. licensing. That is pretty much why no enterprise or lts distro use bleeding edge kernel, just too much hassle to maintain their own patches on top of making sure updates would not break their users.

[anarki2]

ZFS is 100% dumb in single disk scenarios anyway.

https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/single-drive-zfs.35515/#post-216140

Regarding the legal issues, I absolutely agree with Linus.

The technical reasoning is completely wrong though. Unless Linus can recommend me a Linux FS that supports compression, deduplication and snapshots.

The lovely thing about RHEL is that they've removed Btrfs and Stravis is nowhere near completion yet, so RHEL 8 completely lacks support for filesystem compression. Nice job.

[anarki2]

I don't trust a man (Linus) who thinks that because 15 is bigger than 9, so 4.15 i bigger than 4.9. And he is in charge. WTF?!

I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. That's how all software version is happening. .15 is not a decimal, it's a counter. Or do you think that 3.36.2 is also a number? Do you even know the difference between a decimal separator, a thousands separator, and a dot? Guess what, several countries use it the opposite way, that is, "," is the decimal separator and "." is the thousands separator. While in the US it's "." for decimal and "," for thousands.

But neither has ANYTHING to do with version numbers. There are good articles explaining it, if it's that difficult for you to grasp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softwa...ed_identifiers

Not that this random (wrong) opinion of yours has anything to do with ZFS.

[OneTimeShot]

no, here's what SUN said about ZFS. Oracle is a whole another thing, and they only thing they want is MORE MONEY.

Oracle bought Sun in 2009. There hasn't been a comment on the status since.

[polarathene]

I use macOS, FreeBSD and Linux.
I use removable drives from time to time to store data. (long term cold storage)
I'd like to access that disk from any of the OS's I use.
Those drives need to be encrypted.

What file system would you recommend for me? I use ZFS currently for this.

You're in control of all the systems(to the point that you can ensure ZFS support on them when not officially supported/blessed), that gives you plenty of freedoms.

Access via network access to what most people are familiar with via NAS focused system? Your disks can be mounted and handled exclusively via that system if you like. You could use filesystems that provide encryption, or use something like LUKS/LVM, or one of the many utilities that provide fine-grained encryption control rather than full disk(although they could effectively do the same thing afaik).

You didn't raise any other requirements such as in throughput needs, or how the drives needed to be encrypted. Just that they were encrypted and could be accessed via your variety of operating systems.. This approach can still support the drives being removed for cold storage. You could also have OS specific disks with filesystems that are native on each OS with first-party support, and are readable via Linux(or whatever is acting as your NAS), then making that data available via the NAS(either directly or via a copy/sync to the main storage pool).

If ZFS works well for you though, go for it. It's not like using a file system officially supported in the Linux kernel makes it available on your other OS or fits your needs(if alternative suggestions like utilizing a NAS aren't adequate), it'd just be mostly the same argument for other OS.

[vermaden]

"Don't use ZFS. It's that simple. It was always more of a buzzword than anything else, I feel, and the licensing issues just make it a non-starter for me."

Said Linus Torvalds.

Yeah, just use XFS or EXT4 without ANY data consistency ... you can use FAT32 also, similar level.

Torvalds seems to be far more away from technology then ever these days ...

[oiaohm]

Asking for a confirmation letter from Oracle seems like a quick, cheap and simple option for anyone who wants to integrate ZFS on Linux. Surely someone could have got that in the years since OpenZFS turned up? If not, what's stopping them?

Linus Torvalds. has openly asked Oracle personal for answer at conferences to get a letter stating Oracle position on ZFS. No answer from Oracle legal department has ever came. When you cannot get a confirmation letter do you have to be a little worried.

[Citan]

Guest I'm really impressed you got that many people reacting in a serious, primary-degree fashion, to what was an obvious joke. XD

[Konstantin A.]

Some mentioned the bit rot issue. They can read this blog article, which also ends with promises.

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/what-bit-rot-and-how-can-i-detect-it-rhel

[Charlie68]

Regarding the zfs license, I said it here in other discussions and was disputed, but being legal issues that I have no experience with, I let it go. Now reading the whole discussion, I convinced myself that I was right, Linus' own speech is clarifying.
The "bad guys" however are not those who defend the GPL, but those who raise walls with incompatible or at least unclear licenses, so you blame Oracle if zfs cannot be distributed in the kernel.
As far as I'm concerned, I have been using btrfs with satisfaction for 3 years, so I don't care much zfs ...