Bug#1143565: Debian should default to XFS

Nicholas D Steeves <[email protected]> Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:59:10 -0400

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.boot
Message-ID	<87bjbeud01.fsf__13771.3372286939$1786053807$gmane$org@digitalmercury.freeddns.org>

Hi,

Felix Miata <[email protected]> writes:

> IIRC, *SUSE used to default the / filesystem to EXT4, and /home/ to XFS. That's
> been switched to BTRFS for both / and /home/. I think Fedora may also have
> switched to BTRFS.

I confirm that Fedora Desktop also uses btrfs by default.  Meanwhile,
Fedora *server* defaults to XFS.  SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop defaults
to btrfs.  SUSE Linux Enterprise Server puts the rootfs on btrfs, but
uses XFS for data partitions.

If we're going to use a future-directed metric for "what users want",
btrfs-progs popcon looks like it will overtake xfsprogs by the time Duke
is released.  P.S. I still want to form a btrfs-enablement team, so
please let me know if you're interested!

Some other factors that might be worth noting: XFS does not appear to
ever be considered for use on small systems like phones, firewalls, etc.
XFS also used to be more fragile than ext4 in cases of kernel panic,
sudden loss of power, etc, and as far as I know this is still the case.
Should we really make the default fs one that is designed for systems
that have redundant PSUs and UPSs?  That doesn't sound very "do no harm"
to me, and in the same vein, there are workloads that trigger consumer
SSD-destroying write amplification with btrfs; this is why I'm not
pushing for btrfs-by-default at this time.

One of our DDs is also significantly involved with ext4, but to the best
of my knowledge we don't have anyone who also works on upstream XFS.
I remember reading an argument about how this is an advantage when
upstream has breaking changes that need to be disentangled from bugfixes
targeting the LTS kernel that we follow.

Cheers,
Nicholas

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