Should we orphan JFS?

Should we orphan JFS?

[Christoph Hellwig]

Hi all,

A while ago we've deprecated reiserfs and scheduled it for removal.
Looking into the hairy metapage code in JFS I wonder if we should do
the same.  While JFS isn't anywhere as complicated as reiserfs, it's
also way less used and never made it to be the default file system
in any major distribution.  It's also looking pretty horrible in
xfstests, and with all the ongoing folio work and hopeful eventual
phaseout of buffer head based I/O path it's going to be a bit of a drag.
(Which also can be said for many other file system, most of them being
a bit simpler, though).

Re: Should we orphan JFS?

[Harald Arnesen]

Christoph Hellwig [13/01/2023 06.42]:

> Hi all,
> 
> A while ago we've deprecated reiserfs and scheduled it for removal.
> Looking into the hairy metapage code in JFS I wonder if we should do
> the same.  While JFS isn't anywhere as complicated as reiserfs, it's
> also way less used and never made it to be the default file system
> in any major distribution.  It's also looking pretty horrible in
> xfstests, and with all the ongoing folio work and hopeful eventual
> phaseout of buffer head based I/O path it's going to be a bit of a drag.
> (Which also can be said for many other file system, most of them being
> a bit simpler, though).

The Norwegian ISP/TV provider used to have IPTV-boxes which had JFS on 
the hard disk that was used to record TV programmes.

However, I don't think these boxes are used anymore.
-- 
Hilsen Harald

Re: Should we orphan JFS?

[Dave Kleikamp]

On 1/13/23 7:08AM, Harald Arnesen wrote:
> Christoph Hellwig [13/01/2023 06.42]:
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> A while ago we've deprecated reiserfs and scheduled it for removal.
>> Looking into the hairy metapage code in JFS I wonder if we should do
>> the same.  While JFS isn't anywhere as complicated as reiserfs, it's
>> also way less used and never made it to be the default file system
>> in any major distribution.  It's also looking pretty horrible in
>> xfstests, and with all the ongoing folio work and hopeful eventual
>> phaseout of buffer head based I/O path it's going to be a bit of a drag.
>> (Which also can be said for many other file system, most of them being
>> a bit simpler, though).
> 
> The Norwegian ISP/TV provider used to have IPTV-boxes which had JFS on 
> the hard disk that was used to record TV programmes.
> 
> However, I don't think these boxes are used anymore.

I know at one time it was one of the recommended filesystems for MythTV. 
I don't know of any other major users of JFS. I don't know if there is 
anyone familiar with the MythTV community that could weigh in.

Obviously, I haven't put much effort into JFS in a long time and I would 
not miss it if it were to be removed.

Shaggy

Re: Should we orphan JFS?

[Andreas Dilger]

On Jan 13, 2023, at 08:15, Dave Kleikamp <dave.kleikamp@oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> On 1/13/23 7:08AM, Harald Arnesen wrote:
>> Christoph Hellwig [13/01/2023 06.42]:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> A while ago we've deprecated reiserfs and scheduled it for removal.
>>> Looking into the hairy metapage code in JFS I wonder if we should do
>>> the same.  While JFS isn't anywhere as complicated as reiserfs, it's
>>> also way less used and never made it to be the default file system
>>> in any major distribution.  It's also looking pretty horrible in
>>> xfstests, and with all the ongoing folio work and hopeful eventual
>>> phaseout of buffer head based I/O path it's going to be a bit of a drag.
>>> (Which also can be said for many other file system, most of them being
>>> a bit simpler, though).
>> The Norwegian ISP/TV provider used to have IPTV-boxes which had JFS on the hard disk that was used to record TV programmes.
>> However, I don't think these boxes are used anymore.
> 
> I know at one time it was one of the recommended filesystems for MythTV. I don't know of any other major users of JFS. I don't know if there is anyone familiar with the MythTV community that could weigh in.
> 
> Obviously, I haven't put much effort into JFS in a long time and I would not miss it if it were to be removed.

I've used MythTV for many years but haven't seen any particular recommendations for JFS there. Mainly ext4 and XFS are the common filesystems to follow the main distros (Ubuntu in particular). 

Cheers, Andreas

Re: [Jfs-discussion] Should we orphan JFS?

[Stefan Tibus]

Hi all,

While I am mostly an ordinary user running Linux on my own machines at
home, I must say that I have been a happy user of JFS from quite early
on on all my Linux installations, for which I use the Debian distro. I
am also using it on external HDDs and SSDs. In the past I have also been
administrator for a few workgroup servers at my university for about 10
years and there we have transitioned from EXT2 and EXT3 to JFS on LVM at
some point. Only recently I have started using BTRFS because of its
additional features on my newest PC. However, I would not make that
transition on older PCs with less resources. And it is some hassle to
convert all existing filesystems to something else.

I cannot provide hard facts like performance or so for the decision to
use JFS. My first contact with journaling file systems had been on a few
AIX (3.x/4.x) machines and later on with JFS on OS/2. So having started
off based on the code of JFS for OS/2 certainly contributed to the
initial level of trust when giving JFS on Linux a try versus EXT4 and it
didn't let me down.

From my perspective it would be sad seeing it removed while other much
older filesystems (or other features) are retained. But I also know that
in the end it depends on the capability, availability and willingness of
developers to maintain it. And, frankly speaking, I really do not know
how much effort it is to keep the code compatible to new kernel
versions.

So this is my vote against orphaning JFS. I still think it is a good
filesystem and certainly useful on systems with less resources where one
would probably not use BTRFS, ZFS or so. But whatever the final decision
will be, I would like to thank you all for contributing to JFS and
keeping it running over the past >20 years.

Best regards
Stefan


On Sat, Jan 14, 2023 at 05:09:10AM -0700, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2023, at 08:15, Dave Kleikamp <dave.kleikamp@oracle.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/13/23 7:08AM, Harald Arnesen wrote:
> >> Christoph Hellwig [13/01/2023 06.42]:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> A while ago we've deprecated reiserfs and scheduled it for removal.
> >>> Looking into the hairy metapage code in JFS I wonder if we should do
> >>> the same.  While JFS isn't anywhere as complicated as reiserfs, it's
> >>> also way less used and never made it to be the default file system
> >>> in any major distribution.  It's also looking pretty horrible in
> >>> xfstests, and with all the ongoing folio work and hopeful eventual
> >>> phaseout of buffer head based I/O path it's going to be a bit of a drag.
> >>> (Which also can be said for many other file system, most of them being
> >>> a bit simpler, though).
> >> The Norwegian ISP/TV provider used to have IPTV-boxes which had JFS on the hard disk that was used to record TV programmes.
> >> However, I don't think these boxes are used anymore.
> >
> > I know at one time it was one of the recommended filesystems for MythTV. I don't know of any other major users of JFS. I don't know if there is anyone familiar with the MythTV community that could weigh in.
> >
> > Obviously, I haven't put much effort into JFS in a long time and I would not miss it if it were to be removed.
>
> I've used MythTV for many years but haven't seen any particular recommendations for JFS there. Mainly ext4 and XFS are the common filesystems to follow the main distros (Ubuntu in particular).
>
> Cheers, Andreas
>
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> Jfs-discussion mailing list
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Re: [Jfs-discussion] Should we orphan JFS?

[me]

I would also like to chime in as a long time (20+ years?) user of JFS.

I use JFS for essentially all my Linux boxes, laptops, desktops due to
its low resource usage and proven dependability. I also really enjoy
its "naive" implementation of case-insensitivity, which I tend to use
on /home mounted filesystems.

I would really miss JFS for what it's worth and would like to sing its
praises: low resource usage, tried-and-tested stability and for a long
time the only case-insensitive option available (I know about ext4's
new case-folding features of course, but have not had good experiences
with it yet (experienced boot issues with grub, per directory setting)).

Kind regards,


Rubin!