JFS suitability [Was Re: Opinions XFS]
Hello Stefan,
We've been having a discussion on debian-user on the differences between
XFS and JFS and where one would be better than the other for different
applications. In the course of the discussion, Justin Piszcz sent a
copy of an email he received from Dave Kleikamp at IBM who doesn't
recommend JFS for enterprise use because it no longer has a full-time
maintainer.
I wondered how an important package like a filesystem would end up in
debian main stable when upstream doesn't recommend it. I thought that
this would by itself have created a release-critical bug that would keep
it out of stable.
Would you care to comment or shed light on this issue?
Please reply to the debian-user mailing list if possible.
Thanks,
Doug Tutty.
On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 05:32:11PM -0400, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 6 Aug 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
>
> >On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 04:29:43PM -0400, Justin Piszcz wrote:
> >>On Mon, 6 Aug 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> >>>On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 09:55:28AM -0700, David Brodbeck wrote:
> >>>>On Aug 4, 2007, at 2:42 AM, Ron Johnson wrote:
> >>>>>I'd have to modify that. Instead of NIH, my worry is that since XFS
> >>>>>was designed for a different kernel, it's been "shimmed" into Linux
> >>>>>and so doesn't integrate as well as ext2/3 and ReiserFS. Same
> >>>>>concern with jfs.
> >>>>
> >>>>I suppose that's a valid concern, but in the absence of any evidence
> >>>>of problems caused by it I can't say I'm going to lose any sleep. :)
> >>>
> >>>Given that SGI boxes now use Linux and have dropped Irix but still use
> >>>XFS, I think it pretty likely that they have done a good job of ensuring
> >>>that Linux's XFS is up to snuff.
> >>>
> >>>IBM started JFS version 1 with AIX, then ported it to OS/2 and added
> >>>features to make it version 2, then ported it back to AIX where it is
> >>>the standard FS. They got Linux working on their newer Power servers to
> >>>meet customer demand and ported JFS to linux so that they had a common
> >>>filesystem irrespective of OS.
> >>>
> >>>In both cases, the porting was done or directed by the origionator of the
> >>>filesystem for reasons that impact their bottom line. To some extent
> >>>their reputations are on the line with their filesystems. As they are
> >>>right now, I would trust them both equally well. They each have their
> >>>stronger points that make one more suitable than the other for certain
> >>>uses of the filesystem.
> >>>
> >>
> >>I would too, until I found out JFS has no maintainer.
> >>
> >
> >Yikes. The jfsutils copyright and README.Debian are internally dated in
> >2001 as if they are old packages. However, the changelog.Debian.gz and
> >changelog.gz are June, 2006. xfsprogs have more recent changes. Stefan
> >Hornburg is listed as "responsible for this Debian package".
> >
> >What exactly do you mean that JFS has no maintainer.
>
> It has a maintainer, but he cannot work on it full-time:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:11:06 -0500
> From: Dave Kleikamp <shaggy@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> To: Justin Piszcz <jpiszcz@lucidpixels.com>
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
> xfs@oss.sgi.com, linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: bonnie++ benchmarks for ext2,ext3,ext4,jfs,reiserfs,xfs,
> zfs on software raid 5
>
> On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 10:29 -0400, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>
> >Overall JFS seems the fastest but reviewing the mailing list for JFS it
> >seems like there a lot of problems, especially when people who use JFS >
> 1
> >year, their speed goes to 5 MiB/s over time and the defragfs tool has
> been
> >removed(?) from the source/Makefile and on Google it says not to use it
> >due to corruption.
>
> The defragfs tool was an unported holdover from OS/2, which is why it
> was removed. There never was a working Linux version. I have some
> ideas to improve jfs allocation to avoid fragmentation problems, but jfs
> isn't my full-time job anymore, so I can't promise anything. I'm not
> sure about the corruption claims. I'd like to hear some specifics on
> that.
>
> Anyway, for enterprise use, I couldn't recommend jfs, since there is no
> full-time maintainer.
>
> Thanks,
> Shaggy
> --
> David Kleikamp
> IBM Linux Technology Center
>
>
> --
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