EXT4 Gets Performance Work While XFS Gets 32-Bit Fixes For Linux 5.6

File-system / storage activity is as busy as always during the Linux kernel merge windows.

EXT4 changes this cycle include performance work in the inode locking code in the read/write paths, performance work for Direct I/O overwrites in boosting workloads like databases and other Direct I/O optimizations, and general code clean-ups and enhancements.

XFS meanwhile has seen the removal of the last of their 32-bit timestamp code as well as memory corruption fixes affecting 32-bit platforms. There are also a variety of other fixes for XFS with this initial pull request while a secondary round of updates is expected next week.

The 32-bit fixes for XFS are important and jive nicely with Linux 5.6 on 32-bit systems ready for the Year 2038 issue at least as far as the kernel is concerned. XFS moving away from its 32-bit timestamp code was the last of the prominent Linux file-systems needing adjustments.

Also seeing updates for Linux 5.6 is the io_uring changes. IO_uring was introduced back in Linux 5.1 and offers fast and efficient I/O thanks to avoiding excess copies and other optimizations. With Linux 5.6, the IO_uring implementation has support for more opcodes, faster ring quiesce for file-set updates, other optimizations, support for probing supported opcodes, and other changes.