F2FS File-System Merged Into Linux 3.8 Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: F2FS File-System Merged Into Linux 3.8 Kernel

One of the merges not yet talked about for the Linux 3.8 kernel was the mainlining of the F2FS file-system for flash devices...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI1OTU

[newwen]

Any chance of seing this filesystem used in mobile phones to avoid paying royalties to Micro$oft for its exFAT patents?

[V10lator]

Any chance of seing this filesystem used in mobile phones to avoid paying royalties to Micro$oft for its exFAT patents?

Internally: Why not?
Externally ((micro)SD cards) : Rather not, as they have to be Windows compatible.

[rohcQaH]

Benchmarks of the Linux F2FS file-system compared to other file-systems are forthcoming.

Any chance to get numbers for more extreme cases? Since F2FS is simple and lightweight, tests for very large files, deeply nested file structures and/or directories with lots of files might be useful, just to see if it breaks down.

And maybe check /sys/block/<dev>/stat after each write-test to get the number of blocks written, to estimate how it affects your cheap USB stick's durability.

[newwen]

Internally: Why not?
Externally ((micro)SD cards) : Rather not, as they have to be Windows compatible.

Yeah, let's avoid SDXC cards then.

The only non-microsoft formats that windows supports out of the box are cd and dvd media.

Always hindering interoperability to take advantage of its monopoly.

[Brane215]

I'll wait a bit for real 3.8 or version after...

While I usualy ignore kernel advancements from version to version and upgrade occasionaly, this might become one of good reasons for next jump, but not just yet.

This still seems experimental and without fscheck utility.

In the past I used NILFS2 for booting from the USB key and quite liked it. But there is a big problem with it- cleaning. I frequently got to the point where after writing/changing many files on the key went otherwise smoothly, driver would choke with metadata. With NILFS you can fill up drive to the point where you can't ERASE any file on it and you have to recreate filesystem on it to be able to use it. This made it a dealbreaker for me. After putting quite an effor to make a little bootable distro on USB key it died minutes after that on its boot where it couldn't write anything on the key and I could not solve problem by erasing some files.

F2FS, as I understood it, will be immune to such problems- once it comes from purely experimental stage.

BTW: why is everything geared toward pure FLASH based storage ? Hasn't anyone came to a realisation how much problems would be solved by having even smallest SRAM and battery backup alongside FLASH ?

[V10lator]

Yeah, let's avoid SDXC cards then.

As the SDXC standard tells to use exFAT on them you are totally right saying that, even if you might wanted to be ironical.

[Pallidus]

ok so

I have kernel 3.8 and would like to format sdhc cards and a disk partition with f2fs


but in gparted (latest) it doesn't allow me to


??