Distributions

Btrfs by default in Fedora 16?

Btrfs is, by many accounts, the next-generation filesystem for Linux systems. It has, in fact, been the next-generation filesystem for a few years now; progress in the filesystem area often seems to be slow. But btrfs has been maturing to the point that it is highly usable in a number of environments. The list of btrfs users may grow significantly toward the end of this year if a proposal to make it the default filesystem for the Fedora 16 release is adopted.

That proposal was made by btrfs developer Josef Bacik. Josef would not only like to see btrfs as the default F16 filesystem; he would like to stop using the LVM volume manager in favor of the internal volume management built into btrfs. As he notes: "Fedora 16 is a very aggressive target, which is also why I'm bringing it up now. I think we will be ready by then." There are a few things that will have to happen, though, for that to be true.

For example, there is the little problem that there is still no filesystem checker for btrfs. That is, according to btrfs creator Chris Mason, the biggest missing feature in the filesystem at the moment. He also said that he is working on it full time, so this particular gap should be filled sometime in the near future. That said, filesystem checkers, like the filesystems themselves, require a certain amount of time to mature into the kind of rock-solid behavior that users tend to expect. The btrfsck program will certainly have to evolve over time as the various ways in which filesystems can become corrupted are discovered.

Josef noted that support in the GRUB bootloader is another open problem. Patches adding support to GRUB1 exist, but they would have to be carried by Fedora, since there is no functioning upstream for GRUB1. The alternative is to move the distribution to GRUB2, a tool which has the added advantage of an existing upstream development community. Fedora is already contemplating moving to GRUB2, but, with regard to btrfs, there is, naturally, a catch. As was discussed in this article last December, GRUB2 is licensed under GPLv3, while the btrfs code is GPLv2-only. As has been done with ZFS, getting btrfs support into GRUB2 would require relicensing some of the code to GPLv2+. There are now enough contributors to btrfs to make that relicensing an interesting problem, but it is probably still feasible at this point.

Another potential issue is that the developers of Anaconda (the Fedora installer) have complained that they already have a lot of things to work on for the Fedora 16 release. They don't relish the idea of more work, but, according to Chris Lumens, "perhaps we can find some time somewhere." Simply installing to btrfs should be a relatively easy change; reworking volume management to be done within btrfs sounds like rather more work.

Jon Masters opposed the idea of switching away from LVM, saying:

He did not find much support on the list, though; most participants in the discussion seem interested in pushing forward and using the interesting features that btrfs has to offer. Lennart Poettering would like to take things further by splitting the installed drive into three subvolumes, one of which (holding the root filesystem) would be mounted read-only. This scheme would separate the system software from user files and protect the system from changes most of the time, but there would be no need to worry about filesystem sizing since btrfs can expand any of the subvolumes when needed.

That, of course, would be a significant change; having to remount the root filesystem for write access to install an update or make a configuration change could get old relatively quickly. But it could also improve the security of a running system and may be a good configuration for a number of environments. The ability to take snapshots of the root partition and roll the system back in case of trouble would be a nice added bonus.

The one other thing to be kept in mind is that btrfs, despite the speed with which it is maturing, will certainly have a surprise or two in store for its users still. Such is the nature of a new filesystem. But that is also the nature of free software: at some point widespread real-world testing is required to shake out the last round of bugs. Fedora seems like it could be a good place for this level of testing. Whether the ambitious Fedora 16 target will be met remains to be seen, but, if a btrfs default does not happen then, it can probably be expected soon thereafter.

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Brief items

Distribution quote of the week

-- Stefano Zacchiroli

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.9

Red Hat has announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.9. "This is the final minor release for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. With this release Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 will be entering Production 3 phase during which qualified security Errata Advisories of critical impact, as well as, selected urgent priority bug-fix errata may be released."

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Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS released

The second maintenance release of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu 10.04 LTS is available. "Numerous updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS."

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Splashtop OS Now Available

Splashtop OS is a lightweight system optimized for notebooks and netbooks. It does not include any native applications beyond the Chromium-based browser, and boots directly into a start screen featuring a Bing-powered search box in seconds. "The new Splashtop OS, version 1.0, provides broad support for a wide array of PC models, as well as an updated version of the Chromium-based browser featuring one-click access to the Chrome Web Store for easy installation [of thousands] of web apps, games, extensions and themes."

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Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

Event and merchandise handling in Debian

Luca Capello covers some changes in merchandising for Debian events. "Debian, as other players in the Free Software world, is often present at different meetings, expos or conferences around the world, in different manners. Beside having Debian attendees or speakers, most of the time there is a Debian booth, where you can usually find merchandise on sale. It can be a bit strange to read that Debian people are interested in merchandising. However, for a volunteer project like Debian handling merchandise has different goals."

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Fedora

Notes from the Fedora board - SQLninja is back in

The minutes from the February 21 Fedora board meeting have been posted. The big issue appears to be a disagreement with the GNOME project on appropriate wallpaper for the Fedora 15 release, but the board also, after talking with Red Hat's legal department, decided to lift the ban on SQLninja which was imposed last November.

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openSUSE

Spread openSUSE DVDs

The openSUSE project has special promotional DVDs that contain live versions of both the KDE and GNOME desktops to try and install. "So today the openSUSE Project would like to encourage you make use of your second free software freedom and help us to spread promo DVDs! It's easy, think about where you could have the chance to spread them, then order them from us and do it."

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Ubuntu family

Ubuntu Wiki to be re-licensed to CC BY-SA

Canonical has decided to transition the content in the Ubuntu Wiki to the the CC-BY-SA license. "In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will be made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month."

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Other distributions

Unity and Yoper, a tale of two distros...

The developers of Unity Linux and Yoper Linux are working on a new project called ubuild. "A collaboration effort of core developers of Unity Linux and Yoper Linux to produce a 'better' buildsystem than either the Unity Linux community or Yoper Linux currently have. It also sets out to lower the entrance barriers for users to contribute to development tasks for any distribution that chooses to use ubuild for its development."

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Distribution newsletters

• DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 393 (February 21)
• Fedora Weekly News 263 (February 16)

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Minty Fresh KDE and LXDE: Linux Mint LXDE and KDE 10 (Linux.com)

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reviews the release candidates of two Linux Mint 10 editions. "The biggest difference for Mint vs. Kubuntu is that the KDE edition comes with KDE 4.6. Since Kubuntu 10.10 shipped before 4.6 was ready, the release came with a 4.5 series release. Note that you can get 4.6 via a Personal Package Archive (PPA) for Kubuntu, though. At any rate, it's nice to see Mint shipping with the very latest KDE. And I do like what they've done with KDE. The theme is nice and easy on the eyes, and the selection of applications is spot on - though I wish they'd shipped Firefox 4 beta and LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice.org."

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Review: CrunchBang Linux (TechWorld)

TechWorld has a review of #! (CrunchBang). "But then, CrunchBang is not a handholding Linux distribution decked with eye candy; it's a delightfully sleek distro which by default delivers a minimalist (but still useable) desktop operating system. CrunchBang is based on Debian, and the latest version is 10, or 'Statler' (after the Muppet). (For this review I used the 32-bit crunchbang-10-20110207-openbox-i686 ISO. An Xfce-based version of CrunchBang is also available.)"

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