Ext4 Filesystem Enters Experimental Kernel Tree

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like the next version of the venerable Linux 'ext' filesystem is just around the corner. Andrew Morton has added an early version of ext4 to his 2.6.19-rc1-mm1 tree, enabling Linux to support storage volumes up to 1020 petabytes in size, and to write files in 'extents,' or contiguous, reserved areas. According to an article at Linux-Watch, ext4 will be ready for production use within six to nine months, if all goes well. On the downside, the new ext4 filesystem will offer only limited backward compatibility with ext3-aware Linux kernels."

Comments

Re:Reiser4

[osee]

How come everyone makes these murder comments as Anonymous Coward?
Are you afraid of something?

I found the following on the talkback page:
"Yesterday came the announcement of Hans Reiser's arrest for the murder of his missing missus. Yeah, I know: "innocent until" and whatever, but OJ and Scott Peterson have already blown that curve.

Today comes news of a new and potentially powerful Ext4 fs. I find this welcome and timely news.

I'm presently, happily running linux via knoppix on my Toshiba laptop. As of yesterday's news, however, I'm feeling kindof dirty; my little 60Gb hard drive is running on reiserfs 3.

I will, as soon as I can practically do so, upgrade my OS and its file system to something, ext4 or otherwise, that is not associated with a suspected murderer.

Genious does not excuse immoral or illegal behavior: I don't care if reiserfs4 can read/write files at petabytes-per-millisecond; wrong is wrong.

I encourage all other linux users to boycott using resierfs as a statement that morality still means something.

We don't allow this sort of behavior from our politicians or other public officials. We don't excuse it for our football or basketball heroes. Why should we do so for our open-source gurus?

I say we shouldn't.

Linux has its own mountains to climb without having to be bogged down with salacious crap like this.

We should, as a community, put reiserfs behind us. Let us bury this now in the dirt where it belongs, then salt the earth."

This is so much bullshit I could cry. Hans does not benefit from me using reiserfs... Why should I drop it?
Even if he is convicted that doesn't mean he is guilty. Even if he was he can still be a great programmer.
I don't want him to marry my sister, but that's whole another matter.

Next NTFS?

[Lost Penguin]

I would guess the "next NTFS" will be Reiser 4 renamed; now that Hans Reiser is busy on "other matters", Microsoft can complete their plan. /Yeah, I can believe MS would commit murder to steal code.