Do you use ext4 or any other file system? Which one - and why?

[IlyasLinux]

I am on Fedora, so I am using the default BTRFS, I liked it because of its cool features like snapshots!
But I've never notice a difference between BTRFS and EXT4. But stats shows that EXT4 is way faster.

 

[Goatmilk]

I use ext4 because the manual said so - and I thought Linux needed its own format. But I have two external hard drives, both formatted in ntfs in Windows 7, and Linux reads them just fine. I'm constantly moving files back and fro, and more often than not a Linux program takes its files just from the external hdd. Clementine, for example, or VLC.

Maybe the difference matters only for program files.

 

[MikeRocor]

Maybe the difference matters only for program files.

For the most part, it doesn't make much difference. For certain cases where ownership or group ownership or permissions are important it might make more difference. FAT filesystems, for instance, don't have the notion of ownership. NTFS has file "ownership" but it's not implemented the same way as, for instance, ext4.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

i go with "ext4" because i'm not keen enough about any others. especially "btrfs". especially the excrement that was responsible for running down the internal hard disk of windows7. besides a device failure. forcing me to run ubuntu studio from an external 16gb disk for two more years. before it all finally died in october 2017.

i'm always amused when somebody else. reports somewhere fumbling with "btrfs". at least one review on distrowatch. written by a guy disgruntled he wants the computer to suspend or hibernate. just like in windows. should know better. instead gets the main partition scrambled. i don't want to deal with something like that.

i had fedora 36 with mate desktop at one time. backed it up with clonezilla. didn't want to go through that again. takes four times as long to compress the main partition as if it were "ext4". i haven't checked yet to see if it's restorable.

i have installed spirallinux a dozen times at least. desiring to check it out with various desktops. only once have i allowed it with the full compliment. of "btrfs" with snapshots handled by "snapper" program. and selectable via grub. what if grub fails to come up? this is quite possible on the computers i have. that's why i don't like it. remember summer and autumn 2022, many people using arch linux shook their fists at grub. indirectly it led to "systemd" boot being offered on systems like endeavouros.

however "ext4" isn't a blessing. i'm beginning to get pluggable disks "dirtied." so that files as large as 300mib refuse to open. after they were stored for months. i think i need to copy strictly from "fat32/vfat" to another such partition scheme. it's other causes such as using a computer. becoming too old for debian "trixie", wayland, rust etc.