F2FS & Btrfs Enjoy Some Nice Improvements With Linux 6.4

[phoronix]

Phoronix: F2FS & Btrfs Enjoy Some Nice Improvements With Linux 6.4

In addition to EXT4 seeing some performance optimizations and folio conversion for Linux 6.4, the Btrfs and Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) drivers are also seeing some nice enhancements with this next Linux kernel version...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Btrfs-F2FS-Linux-6.4

[Zeioth]

I've been using F2FS for a solid 1-2 years on my main computer and it is very good. Zero issues, and slightly faster.

Works great with systemd-boot. Grub had some serious bugs wish F2FS last time I tried.

[waxhead]

In general it is fun with news about optimizations and speed improvements, but sometimes I wonder; if a subfeature of project x (not the game) is improved by 4x or 10% or 20% or whatever I would really like to know what it compares against. You usually have to dig around a bit to find that info.

Let me try a rather simple example. If a paint program uses 100 milliseconds to draw something on screen, but uses only 0.001 milliseconds to draw it's color picker, then a 4x improvement on on redrawing the color picker might not be of much value especially if you use it only once in a while. A 0.5x improvement on redrawing something on screen would be much more interesting, but sound less impressive.

[deusexmachina]

If only ZFS would get optimized for NVMes

[archkde]

Works great with systemd-boot. Grub had some serious bugs wish F2FS last time I tried.

The great thing about systemd-boot is that the FS does not matter. It only reads from the ESP and leaves everything else to the kernel. Compare GRUB, which ships drivers for everything, which are often incomplete, outdated, buggy or slow.

[pauldoo]

In general it is fun with news about optimizations and speed improvements, but sometimes I wonder; if a subfeature of project x (not the game) is improved by 4x or 10% or 20% or whatever I would really like to know what it compares against. You usually have to dig around a bit to find that info.

Let me try a rather simple example. If a paint program uses 100 milliseconds to draw something on screen, but uses only 0.001 milliseconds to draw it's color picker, then a 4x improvement on on redrawing the color picker might not be of much value especially if you use it only once in a while. A 0.5x improvement on redrawing something on screen would be much more interesting, but sound less impressive.

You are absolutely right. It even has a name, Amdahl’s law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law

It’s why benchmarks (especially micro benchmarks) rarely tell the full story.

[pkese]

Raspberry PI Linux distros should have come with F2FS instead of ext4 preinstalled
... to improve performance and minimize wear (improve longevity) on SD cards.

[Alexmitter]

Raspberry PI Linux distros should have come with F2FS instead of ext4 preinstalled
... to improve performance and minimize wear (improve longevity) on SD cards.

Mobian had trouble with F2FS and I was effected too, corrupted filesystems. They switched back to ext4 and everything is smooth since.

[Old Grouch]

The great thing about systemd-boot is that the FS does not matter. It only reads from the ESP and leaves everything else to the kernel. Compare GRUB, which ships drivers for everything, which are often incomplete, outdated, buggy or slow.

I don't know if GRUB2 uses the same source for the GRUB modules (drivers) and the code in grub-mount, but I find grub-mount useful for mounting things really read-only - it uses GRUB’s file system drivers via FUSE. Mounting a journalled ext4 filesystem read-only replays the journal. If you want to avoid that, another option is mount -o ro,noload

When mounting an ext4 filesystem, the following option are accepted:
(*) == default
ro Mount filesystem read only. Note that ext4 will

replay the journal (and thus write to the
partition) even when mounted "read only". The
mount options "ro,noload" can be used to prevent
writes to the filesystem.

If systemd-boot works for your use-case, that's great. I like the flexibility of GRUB.

[dimko]

I've been using F2FS for a solid 1-2 years on my main computer and it is very good. Zero issues, and slightly faster.

Works great with systemd-boot. Grub had some serious bugs wish F2FS last time I tried.

Using ext4 for root, F2FS for everything else SSD. About year now as well, no complaints. Speeds are fantastic.