consider btrfs by default for Linux systems
This is the current GNOME Disk Utility format partition screen.
Advantages of the "Linux systems only" option using Btrfs instead of ext4:
-
Always on checksumming for metadata and data - Flash is notoriously of variable quality, often the first indication of imminent failure are small transient corruptions that get progressively worse. Btrfs not only detects such corruption but will issue an I/O Error for blocks that fail integrity checking, preventing replication of damaged files.
-
Native compression - separately or as part of this proposed change, also enable minimal (performant) compression via
compress=zstd:1
mount option by default. This will improve performance, since removable flash devices are pretty slow. It will also improve performance on (spinning) hard drives. An extra benefit is it substantially reduces writes and thus wear on flash. And effectively greater storage capacity is likewise a bonus. Kernel 4.14+ supports zstd.
Prior efforts:
-
(open)SUSE defaults to Btrfs for a long time now, for
/
and/home
-
Fedora 33 Workstation, and all desktop spins default to Btrfs.
-
systemd-homed defaults to Btrfs beginning with v247.
To do:
-
Support FS_IOC_SETFSLABEL so we can change file system labels while the fs is mounted. Ideally get ext4 and XFS to support this ioctl as well.
https://github.com/storaged-project/udisks/issues/895
#214 -
Btrfs subpage support, so file system are portable across arches using a page size other than the common 4KiB. (Read only support has happened, and read-write support should land in 5.14.)
-
Check and Repair file system options are not wired up for Btrfs. We could have the former, but I suggest not having the latter.