Would you recommend Reiser4?

MrVahn · Apprentice Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 227 Location: Makati

As of now, namesys declared reiser4 to be stable. Still, I am seeing some posts regarding problems with the said file system. Reiser4 looks promising and reliable, but some users are complaining about it crashing and thrashing their system and usually leads to data loss. I don't have a workstation to test reiser4 on, but I am interested in using it as it looks promising. Would you guys recommend reiser4 as /? Or should I wait until it is officially in the kernel?

thestick · Guru Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 531 Location: /dev/urandom

buddabrod · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject:

It killed some of my data, too. I would not recommend using it.

MrVahn · Apprentice Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 227 Location: Makati

I see. Despite what Hans Reiser is claiming, Reiser4 is not yet stable after all. I guess I'll try it as soon as it gets into the kernel, as it really looks promising. I hope that it would happen soon, although chances are it would not be as soon as I expect. Is ext4 out already?

buddabrod · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:41 pm Post subject:

It may never get into kernel..
ext4 is still in developement but it is in the kernel already

playfool · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:44 pm Post subject:

Reiser4 has some interesting ideas and it was making good progress on getting in the kernel, however now that Hans is in jail awaiting the end of his murder trial he has been forced to put his company on the market to pay for his defence. This means there's really no active development going on and nobody has been able to pick up the code and work on it to get the final issues ironed out.

I sadly think this spells the end or at the very least a major setback for Reiser4, I would not trust my data to it, not because it's unstable (which it is to a degree) but because it will end up being a clutch around your leg since you might have to patch your kernel and rediff the Reiser4 code by hand for as long as you use it.

Covracer · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:52 pm Post subject:

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject:

I wouldn't recommend it for your /home folder or partition, but if you make backups from time to time of your / directory and use it for your system partition, you'll be fine (provided you don't fully fill up that partition :wink:

)

it's working fine here for /usr/portage and /root, almost all other partitions running reiserfs (v3.6)

I've never seen such fast deletes, copies,emerges & more, combine this with viper4 + exec-shield (+ fortify_source compiled system) you get an unachieved security level & speed (for my non-enterprise-standards)

update:

now I'm using it on my laptop for /home & works pretty stable, now data loss so far ... :wink:

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buddabrod · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:08 pm Post subject:

I made lots of tests and for me jfs seemed to be the best FS. It's stable, reliable, it is maintained in the kernel and it's damn fast.

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject:

thestick · Guru Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 531 Location: /dev/urandom

but, on top of all this , reiser4 is the fastest fs i`ve ever seen/touched/compiled

sirdilznik · l33t Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 731

I don't know if I would recommend it to someone for full time use even though I installed my friend's Gentoo box with it and I run it myself and neither one of us has had any real problems (1 1/2 years for him and over 2 years for me). Still I hear about issues from time to time and it's not in the official kernel, so it's a use at your own risk kind of deal. All I can say is I've had nothing but positive experiences with it. At the very least it may be worth it to put /usr/portage on reiser4 since you WILL get a MAJOR performance boost with that over just about any other FS except reiser3.6.

kernelOfTruth · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:38 pm Post subject:

vipernicus · Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:20 am Post subject:

I recommend a full journaled ext4 with extents enabled.
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StringCheesian · l33t Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 887

cheater1034 · Veteran Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 1558

You can't install reiser4 or ext4 with the gentoo CDs :evil:

I've never used ext4, I plan to because I hear very good things.

I do not reccomend reiser4, it has been up and down since 2.6.15-present. It hit a very high peak not long ago and was very solid (it was ready to be merged in 2.6.19-20), but recently it has been nothing but downhill, and it looks like the merge to vanilla (once close) is now very far away again

Try ext4, I don't know any CD you can use to install it, but you can convert ext3 or something.
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d2_racing · Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:25 am Post subject:

If I were you, I would choose EXt4, because there are many threads here that talk about lost data ou corruption data.

MrVahn · Apprentice Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 227 Location: Makati

I have noticed those threads, that is why I am reconsidering about making my / partition reiser4. I want something that will go fast, but stable as well. Is reiser3.6 a good enough general purpose filesystem? AFAIK it is only good in handling small files, but some say it is also a good partition for /. If not, I would just create a separate partition for /usr/portage for faster merges, but I do not know how big that partition should be.

Conan · Guru Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 360

/dev/sda7 on /usr/portage type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail)

203M /usr/portage/

nuff said

MrVahn · Apprentice Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 227 Location: Makati

Which means I do not have to reinstall or recreate my partition table?

sirdilznik · l33t Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 731

If you're going to be using a kernel patchset that supports reiser4 anyway you might as well consider putting /usr/portage on it. Otherwise go reiser3.6 for portage. Either one of those handles small files WAY faster than most other filesystems and that's what portage basically is, a bunch of small files. Using reiser4 this way would also be a good test for you since even if /usr/portage wiggs out on you and gets completely obliterated it would be relatively easy to fix and/or convert to a different FS. Repairing a broken /usr/portage should be as easy as clearing out the partition, downloading a new portage snapshot, and unpacking it (someone correct me if I'm wrong). This way you get the benefit of reiser4 in the place where it will benefit you the most with very little risk and on top of that you get to try the filesystem out and see if it will be "stable" on your system.

I could tell you all day long that reiser4 has played nice for me but that doesn't mean it will not blow up for me tomorrow and it doesn't mean it will not blow up for you. By the same token people can tell you all day long that ext3 is bullet proof, but that doesn't mean that it will not blow up for them tomorrow, and it will not blow up for you. However since ext3 has been around a lot longer the chances of it blowing up are smaller. Whatever filesystem you choose you should always remember 3 things:

1) Backup
2) Backup
3) Backup

Reisre4 has been my best friend for well over 2 years and I trust it, but guess what, i have a bunch of DVDs with all my critical/important data sitting in my cabinet. (Which reminds me, I should to a backup update soon).

In conclusion: It sounds to me like you are curious and want to try out reiser4. It is however marked as experimental and I'm sure for a reason (many). Whether you use it on / or not is dependent on how much it would bother you to have to do a reinstall if the worst happened. Using it on /usr/portage would minimize the risk and still give you reward and allow you to try it and even if in the future reiser4 goes completely belly up (I hope not), and/or great kernel patchset makers such as cheater-conrad, vipernicus, etc... stop patching their kernels with it, converting to a different FS would be simple.

cheater1034 · Veteran Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 1558

:-p I forgot to mention I've used reiser4 for 2 yrs (soon to try/maybe convert to ext4) and I only had one crash the first install that used it (because I tried to re-mount while it was in the process of unmounting or something like that --- self caused) It has been pretty rock solid for me, but I don't have good results with it anymore, only on really tiny files - slightly larger files suck compared to everything else.
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MrVahn · Apprentice Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 227 Location: Makati

Thanks guys for your very informative responses. I'm still confused on the filesystem changing thingy. Does it mean that I can change the filesystem of a partition on a whim, without losing the data in it? As far as I understand filesystems, one should reformat the partition with the desired filesystem. To change a filesystem is to reformat. That is how I view it because I'm quite used to M$. I've been using it for quite a long time already. I have only used linux for about two years now, but nothing as bleeding edge as gentoo. That is why I am missing out a lot of things. LOL.

sirdilznik · l33t Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 731

buddabrod · Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:48 am Post subject:

Maybe it's my slow PC, but emerge --sync is completed 2 times faster when portage and / are on jfs partitions. reiser4 took much longer and my system was overloaded..