Feature Request

[Ethan Bonick]

> On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 15:56, Ethan Bonick wrote:
>> Something I have wanted for the last two releases is the ability to
>> choose more than ext2 or ext3 for my partitions. I would like to be
>> able to choose jfs, reiserfs, xfs at install time without having to
>> boot resuce create partitions and then start the install and choose do
>> not format. Is there a reason for not really having a choice?
>>
>> Just my $.02 here. Linux is all about choice yet we seem to be moving
>> toward the distributors choice. I know. I know. You all say switch to
>> a different distro if I dont like it. Well I have tried and I havent
>> liked any of the others. Gentoo was good but just not stable. I just
>> hate to see all of our choices go away because we want to be able to
>> have mom and pop install on their machines. We should be left with
>> some choices and not have to dumb everything down. Even Win2K and XP
>> gave you partition type choices.
>
> The cynical viewpoint on why other distributinos are "not stable" could
> be because they use other partition types, such as resier and xfs, that
> are not nearly as stable as ext2/3.  Have you ever thought of that
> correlation?  [Not trying to shoot out red herrings here, but you left
> yourself open to that.  And reiserfs certainly has had its share of
> problems over the past couple of years; I can't speak for the others.]
>
> Why did Red Hat choose ext3 over the other journalled filesystems?
> Because they were bought off by the ext3 developers?  Because they don't
> want a j in the name of the filesystem?  NO, it's because they carefully
> analyzed the merits and problems of each one and decided that ext3 was
> the most appropriate.  I believe there was a "Red Hat Speaks" article on
> this a while back, though those don't seem to be archived for very long
> so I can't be sure.  The long and short of it was -- ext3 is the best
> for general audiences.  If you are really enough of a power user that
> you need one of the others, you certainly have the skills to set it up
> yourself.  There just weren't enough compelling reasons to support the
> infrastructure needed for multiple journalling filesystems when ext3
> does the job just fine.
>
> Just my $0.01
>
> --Jeremy

My problem had been that the other distros dont have the configuration
tools redhat does. I just thought Linux was about choices and we just seem
to be losing them as we "progress." Dont get me wrong I dont want ot go
back to RH5.2 text only install, but I would like to be able to configure
the install a little bit.

-- 
Ethan Bonick
etbonick_AT_networkinggeeks.com
http://www.networkinggeeks.com