From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 6 15:19:42 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6C4C4A71 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 2015 15:19:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2C0C51F0D for ; Tue, 6 Jan 2015 15:19:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-251-159.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.251.159]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 28F32277F7; Tue, 6 Jan 2015 16:19:38 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id t06FJcfq001974; Tue, 6 Jan 2015 16:19:38 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 16:19:38 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Rolf Nielsen Subject: Re: Questions from a Linux refugee Message-Id: <20150106161938.7549175c.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <54ABF51A.3030706@gmail.com> References: <20150106115503.4870ab2e@jive> <20150106123321.31c89156.freebsd@edvax.de> <54ABF51A.3030706@gmail.com> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Lev X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 15:19:42 -0000 On Tue, 06 Jan 2015 15:45:46 +0100, Rolf Nielsen wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > On 2015-01-06 12:33, Polytropon wrote: > > On Tue, 6 Jan 2015 11:55:03 +0100, Lev wrote: > >> 1. Lack of ext4 support. As a Linux user, I have lots of disks > >> with ext4 partition, and I simply wanted to copy files, but > >> failed. I might be naive, but ext4 is open, so why can't FreeBSD > >> have native support for ext4? > > > > Because of the amount of available file systems especially in Linux > > (more than 5), having them supported along with the operating > > system (!) is not FreeBSD's way to go. Instead you can find support > > in 3rd party software: The ports collection contains fuse which > > allows you to access many kinds of different file systems. > > Isn't the issue more about ext4 being GPL licensed than about > maintaining support for several filesystems? ZFS support is CDDL, not BSDL, but even though I think the goal of getting the OS free of GNU and GPL stuff leads to attempts to have as much BSDL code in base as possible, not having ext4 support in the OS (kernel!) is a technical consideration. On Linux, significant parts of the file system access are being implemented in the kernel, but FreeBSD's kernel simply isn't a Linux kernel. So moving this functionality into userland (with FUSE) is probably the better approach. You don't want to break your kernel by adding bells & whistles just to cope with this week's newest fashion of "the standard file system". :-) With FUSE, foreign file systems can be easier interfaced with because their "lower level functions" are implemented against FreeBSD's virtual file system support. All this can stay in userland, without interfering with the kernel and the common userland tools. A (one!) specific loadable kernel module can provide the "low level" access where it is needed. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...