F2FS Will Have Faster Case-Insensitive Lookups With Linux 5.4

The EXT4 case-insensitive lookup optimization added to the file-system with the current Linux 5.3 cycle has been ported to the Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) for the upcoming Linux 5.4.

F2FS has done a good job following EXT4 that spearheaded this modern case-insensitive directory/file feature that's optional and opt-in on a per directory basis. Like with F2FS' other following of EXT4 around this feature, it's now ported the look-up optimization from 5.3 to its driver. On the EXT4 side it has resulted in around 30% faster look-ups on large directories by introducing a temporary cache to avoid repeated case-folding.

The F2FS patch is now queued as part of its file-system code for the upcoming Linux 5.4 merge window. Besides that optimization, there are a lot of F2FS fixes in general on the way for this next kernel release to end out 2019.