Re: Bug#1143565: Debian should default to XFS

On Tue, Aug 04, 2026 at 04:14:56PM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
>On Tue, 2026-08-04 at 15:10 +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>> > If you have any insights on what the universal distribution needs as the
>> > default, please by all means post them! But otherwise, please lets stop
>> > invoking the universal distro.
>> 
>> Right. It's mostly meaningless at this level.
>
>I don't think so. There is really a huge difference between what you can do
>with Debian as compared to what you can do with RHEL or SLES.
>
>Try setting up a cross-compiler environment or try reading any filesystem
>that isn't mainstream such as HFS/HFS+ or install some obscure package for
>medical sciences.
>
>We shouldn't really diminish the value that comes with Debian's universal
>usefulness. Of course, if your use case is installing Linux on a standard
>x86_64 laptop for internet browsing, you might not see that flexibility,
>but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The "universal" here gives no guidance at all on a default filesystem
for installation, which is the question here. Any of the systems we
support should be able to work well with any of the options we might
consider here.

Not everything has to be a special snowflake on every axis here.