Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 23:11:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: grog@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ReiserFS (was: JFS (was: The FreeBSD core team needs your help)) Message-ID: <200107080311.f683BI3192583@saturn.cs.uml.edu>
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Greg Lehey writes:
> On Saturday, 7 July 2001 at 14:50:21 +0200, A. L. Meyers wrote:
>> Just installed SuSE Linux 7.2 with Reiser FS throughout on an Intel
>> SMP box. The FS purrs, even on /, which doesn't mean everything is
>> better or worse than FBSD.
>
> I don't know enough about ReiserFS to be able to give a useful
> opinion. The Linux people I know are by no means in agreement about
> its merits, but I've heard that it's best as a "special purpose" FS
> for small files. I don't know how valid that statement is.
Old versions used "preserve lists" for integrity.
New versions use a journal.
The filesystem is great with huge files, up to the block device limit.
With tail packing enabled, the filesystem is great with tiny files.
Traditional filesystems can be slightly better in the "few kB" range.
If you disable tail packing, Reiserfs behaves more like a traditional
filesystem for tiny and mid-size files.
For NFS, one should use the version 3 protocol and the most recent
2.4-series kernel. This is because Reiserfs needs more than just
an inode number to find a file. Reiserfs doesn't really have inodes,
and certainly doesn't have inode tables in fixed locations. If you
try to use the NFS version 2 protocol, you lose when the client asks
for a file that isn't in the server's cache. XFS and many other
non-traditional filesystems also have trouble finding files by a
32-bit inode number.
Reiserfs can be operated without directories for special purposes.
("ls" shows nothing) This is good for a web cache or mail server.
Not that directories are slow though: you can put millions of
subdirectories directly into a single parent.
Porting to FreeBSD is not a sane thing to consider. Hans Reiser
likes to keep the option of selling a closed-source license to
people who can not accept the GPL; the BSD license would prevent
him from doing this. Also the VFS layer is completely different.
FreeBSD is far more inode-oriented than Linux is, isn't it?
Hans Reiser would likely consider a port if you offer money.
You'll need lots of money to get a BSD license on the code.
Those of you doing appliance things might get a lower price.
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