OpenZFS 2.2.5 Released With Linux 6.9 Support, Some Linux 6.10 Bits

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenZFS 2.2.5 Released With Linux 6.9 Support, Some Linux 6.10 Bits

OpenZFS 2.2.5 is now available as the newest stable update to this open-source ZFS file-system implementation for Linux and FreeBSD systems...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenZFS-2.2.5-Released

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

At the end of the day, if you want to run OpenZFS on Linux, you are way better off using LTS kernels. Even if your distro cherry picks the early compat changes, there's no guarantee that those are complete and compat bugs can be found later (happened in 6.8). So you either hold / lock the latest officially supported kernel, go the LTS kernel route, or cherry pick and cross your fingers.

[Luke_Wolf]

At the end of the day, if you want to run OpenZFS on Linux, you are way better off using LTS kernels. Even if your distro cherry picks the early compat changes, there's no guarantee that those are complete and compat bugs can be found later (happened in 6.8). So you either hold / lock the latest officially supported kernel, go the LTS kernel route, or cherry pick and cross your fingers.

Yeah which is why in the long term it's really a dead end choice of a technology on Linux. Someone has to maintain the out of tree module and I don't really foresee the effort to continue being put in once Linux finally eventually has a decent in-tree CoW filesystem, it doesn't need to have all the features of ZFS it just has to be reliable and have a good subset (bootable snapshots, send/receive, and a few other things) but once it exists it'll be hard for anyone but the most hardcore ZFS enthusiast to keep up the motivation to continue using ZFS.... and one day it'll just stop working and nobody will be there to fix it at which point it dies.

FreeBSD you'll be able to run it for forever but unless Oracle takes the big step of switching ZFS to a GPL compatible license and then the work is done to ensure a full relicense to that in OpenZFS then it has an indeterminate expiration date on it. Which makes it hard for me to justify outside of FreeBSD usage. You have time now, but my disks usually survive multiple hardware builds and just keep going until I need to expand it or it dies.

[mbod]

Yeah which is why in the long term it's really a dead end choice of a technology on Linux.

Why would that be a dead end choice? Debian, Ubuntu LTS, Centos, Red Hat are all running on LTS kernel or even older. Even Arch Linux is supporting an LTS kernel out of the box. Only Fedora makes it a little more complicate to run on LTS kernel.

Someone has to maintain the out of tree module

What does that mean? in-tree modules have to be maintained as well.The effort is the same.

once Linux finally eventually has a decent in-tree CoW filesystem, it doesn't need to have all the features of ZFS it just has to be reliable and have a good subset (bootable snapshots, send/receive, and a few other things) but once it exists it'll be hard for anyone but the most hardcore ZFS enthusiast to keep up the motivation to continue using ZFS

When shall that be? btrfs is 10+ years old and still not there. bcachefs will take several years before it might be an option. If you want to wait that long you can run mdadm+lvm+ext4/xfs in the meantime. For everybody else zfs is a good option.

[ahrs]

What does that mean? in-tree modules have to be maintained as well.The effort is the same.

I think the point he's making is that they are maintained in-tree together with the rest of the kernel. If BTRFS doesn't compile somebody will fix it during the rc development cycle before the kernel gets released. There's not normally a kernel released where a filesystem doesn't compile and if there is then that will very quickly be fixed in a patch release or walked back.

ZFS on the other hand fails to compile all the time and they don't have the man power to fix it quickly enough in the kernel development life cycle before it releases.

[flower]

I think the point he's making is that they are maintained in-tree together with the rest of the kernel.

Probably

If BTRFS doesn't compile somebody will fix it during the rc development cycle before the kernel gets released. There's not normally a kernel released where a filesystem doesn't compile and if there is then that will very quickly be fixed in a patch release or walked back.

ZFS on the other hand fails to compile all the time and they don't have the man power to fix it quickly enough in the kernel development life cycle before it releases.

Doesn't really matter though.
Most distributions that support zfs will make sure to only release kernels that are supported by zol. i use nixos on my nas and it will never update to a kernel that is not officially supported.

[mbod]

ZFS on the other hand fails to compile all the time and they don't have the man power to fix it quickly enough in the kernel development life cycle before it releases.

This is not about manpower. This is about waiting for the new kernel version to be released before fixing things that have changed. And then, new versions of zfs are being released only every second or third month. That alone is too slow to keep up with kernel development.

But honestly, when you are looking for stability, and this is the main reason for using zfs, you are not jumping on the latest and greatest kernel anyways.

[mdedetrich]

This is not about manpower. This is about waiting for the new kernel version to be released before fixing things that have changed. And then, new versions of zfs are being released only every second or third month. That alone is too slow to keep up with kernel development.

Technically speaking this isn't entirely technically correct either, OpenZFS can track (and react to) kernel upstream in tree changes as they land, nothing is forcing them to wait for a Linux kernel release (after all the Linux kernel is open source).

[skeevy420]

Why would that be a dead end choice? Debian, Ubuntu LTS, Centos, Red Hat are all running on LTS kernel or even older. Even Arch Linux is supporting an LTS kernel out of the box. Only Fedora makes it a little more complicate to run on LTS kernel.

Yep. That kernel argument is rather moot since most distributions don't ship the latest stable kernel and most rolling release distributions have LTS kernel options. It's only when you run a development and testing OS like Fedora that's used by a lot of GNOME, GNU, and GPL diehards that you have a problem. NVIDIA has the same problems on Fedora as OpenZFS. Both modules highlight Fedora's limitations as a consumer oriented OS more than anything.

What does that mean? in-tree modules have to be maintained as well.The effort is the same.

In tree and out of tree is a bullshit thing that some people bring up as a way to "prove" that something will or won't have some form of maintenance burden. They don't realize how much lives out of tree waiting to be deemed good enough to be included in the kernel or that once it is included that someone has to step up and constantly update it else it'll risk being kicked out of the kernel like ReiserFS and old architectures. Frankly, in or out of tree, all it does is highlight that the kernel needs better long term stability in regards to an ABI or API.

"But it's out of tree" ain't the flex or argument they think it is.

When shall that be? btrfs is 10+ years old and still not there. bcachefs will take several years before it might be an option. If you want to wait that long you can run mdadm+lvm+ext4/xfs in the meantime. For everybody else zfs is a good option.

I've been having this same argument since 2016. Nothing has changed. If a person needs more than just a file system then only real solutions on Linux are the cluster+fuck+file/system options and OpenZFS. Everything else on Linux pales in comparison to OpenZFS. Even if BTRFS were to get more features, it probably won't ever have the fine grained per volume/dataset controls that OpenZFS has so BTRFS will never by an option for someone who already uses OpenZFS or who uses the cluster+fuck and wants a simpler solution. While I'm hopeful for Bcachefs, it's still a decade or so out from being anywhere near the level of OpenZFS as well as it might need some of the cluster+fuck.

[waltar]

But honestly, when you are looking for stability ...

every week there are a couple of new cannot import posts due to power failure, overwritten labels etc which is more the main reason for not using zfs ...
but as live is boring if there's nothing for to take a look into why today ...