Bug#1143565: Debian should default to XFS

On 2026-08-04 05:50, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> On 04/08/2026 at 12:57, Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:
>> 
>> That's certainly a valid point. I take this to mean that you think we 
>> should have technical arguments for one or another default, as opposed 
>> to picking something just because someone else does it.
> 
> XFS cannot be shrunk. IMO this disqualifies it as default filesystem.
...er, Some of us do not like the boiler-plate defaults carried over by 
the (lazy ?) hosting providers when they provision a bare metal and/or 
virtualized/cloud servers instance(s).

Reiser4, likewise, cannot be shrunk. Yet, I have made it the default 
file system in my later customized d-i, i.e., partman-base hack:
< https://metztli.it/trixie/partman-base_reiser4-default.png >

And, previously, I did override the Debian default ext/x/y file system 
in provisioned servers by uploading my custom reiser4 image -- either to 
be used in virtual CD/DVD ROM device and/or booting from the d-i image 
residing in either of a two (at least) disk storage media in bare metal 
instances, and repartitioning/reinstalling Debian on reiser4:
< https://metztli.blog/nochtli/boot-metztli-reiser4-netboot-on >

> I have seen so many users need to shrink a partition in order to free 
> disk space for another partition. With XFS their only option would be 
> to reinstall and/or back up and restore.
> 
> Also ISTR that XFS is more memory-hungry than ext4, and read about some 
> operations which caused transient high memory usage. But maybe this is 
> not relevant any more with current memory sizes ?
> 
> Maybe the default filesystem could be made conditional to the 
> architecture, memory size, partition size... ?

And whether user selected d-i Expert Installation option [?] then XFS 
should be the default. After all, users who subsequently resize their 
partitions likely are novices who have not planned their partitioning 
and likely would not appreciate XFS/Reiser4, either.
> 
> Note: the default filesystem type can be preseeded.