F2FS For Linux 5.2 Sees Better SMR Drive Support, Various Fixes

While no flashy features like EXT4's case-insensitive option with Linux 5.2, the Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) did see a good amount of fixes and other improvements for this new kernel round.

F2FS continues seeing more adoption particularly on Google Android devices and that has led into an uptick in fixes now that more vendors are evaluating this file-system optimized for non-rotating drives. Jaegeuk Kim sent in the F2FS changes for Linux 5.2 on Monday and it's again heavy on the fixes.

With Linux 5.2 there are several fixes around SMR drive support for shingled magnetic recording drives with lower memory consumption and multiple partition support.

F2FS in Linux 5.2 also has better discard handling for multiple partitions, a deadlock fix, better checking / error handling, and a smothering of other fixes.

The complete list of F2FS changes for Linux 5.2 can be found via this kernel mailing list post.