EROFS Read-Only Linux File-System Working Toward New Features

EROFS as a reminder is the read-only Linux file-system originally introduced four years ago that has gone on to see some use particularly by Android devices. While there hasn't been much to report on EROFS in recent time, they are approaching some new functionality in coming kernels.

Last week the EROFS file-system updates were sent in for the Linux 5.18 merge window. The changes this time around aren't too notable with having some fixes and continuing the ongoing work to use meta buffers for all remaining uncompressed paths.

While that meta buffer work may not sound exciting, it's being done in order to in turn work for supporting sub-pages, memory folio integration, and FSCACHE features.

EROFS in Linux 5.18 also has a new record "mtime" renamed from "ctime" so user-space can control per-file timestamps easier.

More details on the EROFS changes for Linux 5.18 via its feature pull.