LWN: Comments on "SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available"

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

Baylink — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 22:04:32 +0000

For the record, there's a difference between

1) Supports X
2) Defaults to X
and
3) Requires X.

SuSE has always been a bit premature for my tastes in promoting 1 to 2, but if they've started being gratuitous about promoting to 3...

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

Baylink — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 22:02:52 +0000

> SUSE wants Btrfs presumably for its COW snapshot capability, which they use extensively within their administration tools to let you roll back failed package installations and other configuration actions.

Does that mean it won't with without btrfs -- which I won't run either -- as the root fs?

Given how SuSE has been marching these days, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

danielkza — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:54:07 +0000

That isn't enough for all use cases. I absolute hate how virtual interfaces for containers/VMs show with no way to disable them from NM.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

etienne — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:31:58 +0000

> ... we've crafted a file system implementation that *is* supportable. Between limiting the feature set for which we offer support ...

I hope the feature set is written inside the filesystem "feature support" bitfield in the filesystem header - like ext2/3/4 - because sometimes you have to mount such filesystem on another system (for instance Fedora) which may support/use all features of btrfs.
Such case may include failing hard disk content recovery, content repair, or even direct access to unmounted filesystem like "undelete file" kind of software...

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

marcH — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 09:28:39 +0000

> Example: unmanaged-devices=mac:00:22:68:1c:59:b1;mac:00:1E:65:30:D1:C4

As you can see from the page I linked this is usually not enough - you need to add some plugin as well. Either way it fails the basic "Do it without Google" user interface sanity check.

NetworkManager was specifically designed to stop users having to edit cryptic config files. The first versions did not even have a half-decent command line.

There should be in the graphical interface a simple list of network interfaces where users just tick the one(s) they want unmanaged. This does not seem like rocket science considering NM supports pretty much everything else and the kitchen sink.

I vaguely suspect the motivation to be about blocking users from shooting themselves in the foot by owning the entire system. Think about the routing table for instance. This concern could be address with a simple WARNING! before unmanaging.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

cortana — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 09:18:23 +0000

It doesn't seem that difficult; from NetworkManager.conf(5):

unmanaged-devices=mac:<hwaddr>;mac:<hwaddr>;...
Set devices that should be ignored by NetworkManager when using the keyfile plugin. Devices are specified in the following format: "mac:<hwaddr>", where <hwaddr> is MAC address of the device to be ignored, in hex-digits-and-colons notation. Multiple entries are separated by a semicolon. No spaces are allowed in the value.
Example: unmanaged-devices=mac:00:22:68:1c:59:b1;mac:00:1E:65:30:D1:C4

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

marcH — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:05:44 +0000

> Also it supports bridging, bonding, usb networking, bluetooth network, enterprise, etc etc.. Pretty much anything that is done using Linux

Ah, then it's probably why it's so complicated to tell NM to stop messing in the background with manual, "lab" configurations.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/21914/how-can-i-make-netwo...

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

kdave — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:11:45 +0000

Upstream kernel is a different beast, a mixture of new code and bugfixes goes with each release, the development pace is rather fast. The SLE kernel is based on some older upstream version and for an extended period of time only bugfixes are backported. The speed of development is considerably slower nad much more conservative.

The set of supported and enabled features is reduced so the impact of new and untested code is low. Bugs happen of course. Claiming full support for every feature that's available in btrfs today would be insane indeed. New features are added incrementally with each service pack or product after evaluation and testing.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

drag — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 16:47:31 +0000

I like Network Manager because it uses it's own 'ini'-style text-based configuration files and can be managed entirely from the command line. No gui needed.

Also it supports bridging, bonding, usb networking, bluetooth network, enterprise, etc etc.. Pretty much anything that is done using Linux and is very difficult to do using any other system. Also it integrate nicely with firewalld, which allows for dynamic network-aware firewalls.

It's pretty close to ideal for my servers since my network setups can get pretty complecated.

Wicd compared to it is a rather bloated, very limited, GUI-centric configuration approach that has been a dead project for a couple years now.

It would be nice if Wicked was comparable to Network-Manager, but I doubt it.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

zlynx — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 04:36:42 +0000

I am sure I am tempting fate by writing this, but I've been running btrfs on a small file server with a pair of WD Red drives for almost a year. No problems so far. Has worked great.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

alvieboy — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:49:07 +0000

I actually was inspecting it, because I do use wicd. Thanks for the tip.

Not properly happy with wicd though, unless I keep the UI closed - with it opened, my CPU usage rises about 30%, and my battery drains.

Still, better that to use NM. I wonder if this 'wicked' thing can be an alternative.

Alvie

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

mleu — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 16:28:19 +0000

For anybody interested, in 2013 there was a big thread on opensuse-factory called "BtrFS as default fs?". In one of his replies to the skeptics on that list, Jeff Mahoney (who started the thread and is also the leader of the SUSE Labs Storage and File Systems team) said this regarding the maturity of Btrfs:

I know people don't really want to compare SLES with openSUSE, but here's a case in which the story matters. We've been offering official support for btrfs since SLE11 SP2. SP3 was released a few months ago. Many people thought we were insane to do so because OMG BTRFS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL, but we've crafted a file system implementation that *is* supportable. Between limiting the feature set for which we offer support and our kernel teams aggressively identifying and backporting fixes that may not have been pulled into the mainline kernel yet (more a factor of the maintainers being busy than the patches not being fully baked), we've created a pretty solid file system implementation.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

mleu — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 16:10:46 +0000

Ext4 is supported in SLES12, as shown on the File Systems table in the Release Notes and the technical information page. See the row "Support Status" - where it says "SLE" that means it's included in the base product. HTH.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

mathstuf — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:30:44 +0000

Is there at least a warning? Release notes? Why don't they at least ship an ext4 read-only module? Do they ship the NTFS module? If so, why give it better support out-of-the-box than ext4?

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

bferrell — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 14:16:57 +0000

ext4, if present on a system is either converted to btrfs OR not mountable after the install. Not nice and not pleasant.

I'm still dealing with damage from btrfs

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

nye — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 10:21:32 +0000

So looking at the btfs mailing list the most recent thread regarding corruption is from... today. The next most recent: from yesterday. The day before that, a thread about 'btrfs balance' crashing.

>> Btrfs as the default setting for the OS filesystems and XFS as the default for all other partitions.
>Is this as insane as it sounds?

Tentatively, I would be inclined to say 'yes'.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

zdzichu — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 08:18:41 +0000

SUSE disabled 90% if interesting stuff in btrfs, thus leaving only smart part of filesystem.

Patch is here: http://kernel.opensuse.org/cgit/kernel-source/tree/patche...

FWIW, they neutered ext4, too: http://kernel.opensuse.org/cgit/kernel-source/tree/patche...

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

anselm — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 07:35:05 +0000

SUSE wants Btrfs presumably for its COW snapshot capability, which they use extensively within their administration tools to let you roll back failed package installations and other configuration actions.

SUSE has a bit of a history promoting iffy file systems (they were really into ReiserFS when that was still a thing); we can hope that they will fund work on Btrfs that we can all profit from down the road.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

jhoblitt — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 05:29:40 +0000

If only wicked didn't use xml config files. ;(

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

mathstuf — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 04:07:32 +0000

In case anyone else was wondering, wicked here is not related to wicd at all.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

bronson — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 03:57:48 +0000

Not fud, I've just had trying experiences with these filesystems in the past. I'm all for using them, I'm just worried about making btrfs the default.

The btrfs corruption was on a cheap 5400rpm pata 1GB drive. There were enough other reports about problems when nearing disk full that I didn't bother.

If you think I can run for a long time at 85+% usage without frying it, I'll try again. I'll bring up an Ubu 14.10 or Fed 21 beta (haven't decided which) next month, and I still have the data that did it in. If you think it's worth the time, I can try again...

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

carenas — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 02:14:33 +0000

assuming this is not just FUD, could you provide any more insights into the configuration where this is failing, so that someone can actually fix that problems sometime? is it really failing on SuSE with their tested enterprise kernel versions?

I'd been using XFS and brtfs in production (no mp3, USB or any other complicated stuff, but even using cheap 4TB drives that are not even enterprise ready) for a while and had yet to see any issues with it

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

bronson — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 00:43:18 +0000

> Btrfs as the default setting for the OS filesystems and XFS as the default for all other partitions.

Is this as insane as it sounds? I don't think I've used a filesystem that eats itself as reliably as btrfs. I last tried on an unimportant 800 GB partition a year ago, got massive corruption after about 600 GB (happy to say, that's a lot better than it did the year before). ext4 is stone cold reliable on the same hardware.

I've had my share of data corruption with XFS too... I hear they've fixed the zeroing-out problem, but my MP3 collection will carry those scars forever. (no, not interested in fixing it with Google Match).

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Now Available

mleu — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:00:20 +0000

More technical information can be found in the SLES 12 Release Notes such as

systemd replacing SysV init
the introduction of their own network configuration interface called wicked
Btrfs as the default setting for the OS filesystems and XFS as the default for all other partitions.
MySQL being replaced by MariaDB, with the added benefit that this package is now fully supported.
Docker and OpenJDK included as unsupported packages.