Rudd-O
rudd-o.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Personal blog of a Linux and free software developer writing on ZFS, Fedora, Stallman, copyright and politics.
What HN saysHN links it for ZFS versus Btrfs comparisons and the Stallman dinner post; commenters debate copyright and filesystem usability.
17HN people shared it
9linked it in comments
8stories submitted
134story points
8 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How ZFS continues to be better than Btrfs.6 people · 122 points · first shared 2012 · 102 comments on HN
- 2Richard Stallman, free software and voluntaryism: thoughts after dinner3 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · 3 comments on HN
- 3The political castration of artificial intelligence1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Tales from responsivenessland: why Linux feels slow, and how to fix that (2007)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 5Removal of Ogg Vorbis and Theora from HTML5: an outrageous disaster!1 people · 1 points · first shared 2007 · discussion on HN
- 6What's the deal with "age verification" and computers?1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 7Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail notifying you late (or never) when Emailed?1 people · 1 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 8How to install Fedora on top of ZFS1 people · 1 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 9Bitcoin without the politics1 people · first shared 2013
- 10The shell challenge changing another process working directory1 people · first shared 2016
What HN people wrote when they linked it
tjaerv · 2013-07-23
> I'm pretty sure that Stallman would love a post-copyright world...
See http://rudd-o.com/monopolies-of-the-mind/thoughts-after-my-dinner-with…
"Richard is against abolishing copyrights because, to his view, without copyright, enforcing copyleft would be impossible."
hardwaresofton · 2020-11-20
So has anyone here used zfs and btrfs and would like to comment on the differences? I've been on a heavy zfs kick lately, but the performance loss is hard to stomach and the only research I found points to btrfs being faster (though of course they both take a hit).
Basically the reasons I'm drawn to zfs are:
- checksumming & self-healing
- ergonomics & flexibility of managing pools with zfs
- copy on write for cheap local copy/experimentation (i.e. just clone your DB folder and you have a new DB)
- zfs send/recv for very efficient incremental backups
From what I can find it seems like btrfs does all that, and faster[0]. In addition to being faster, it also is in-kernel[1], and more flexible for the user in various ways, for example allowing resizing[2]. Looking around btrfs may not be blessed as stable but there are a lot of big orgs using it.
All that said, there are articles like this one[3] which are somewhat dated but paint ZFS really positively from a maintenance point of view. Very hard to pick between these two.
I'd really like to use ZFS -- the community seems very welcoming and amazing but I'm a little worried about picking the wrong tool for the job.
[EDIT] - there's also this old comparison from phoronix[1] which is confusing. I'm still learning towards ZFS but sure would like to hear some strong opinions if anyone has em.
[0]: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822493/FULLTEXT01.pdf
[1]:…
chungy · 2018-02-13
It definitely did. btrfs might have been ready years ago otherwise, but instead... it languishes like a sad joke in comparison to ZFS.
The biggest problem btrfs has, really, is the user interface. Nothing is as easy to use as the zfs command!
This is still a pretty good summary of the differences: https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better…
The only part that's outdated now is that btrfs finally has raid5/6 support... kind of. It's still marked experimental and shouldn't be trusted for production data.
Mind, btrfs does have one advantage: online shrink support providing much better resizing capabilities for its pools. This has always been on the backburner of ZFS; Sun once had a very slow implementation back around 2005-2006, but the Oracle acquisition pretty much killed any planned work on that front and I think most users of ZFS likewise don't consider it a high priority either. Even for the case of btrfs... it only works great when it's in the mood to. It's a bit easy to get into situations where it will absolutely refuse to remove devices despite there being plenty of space for it.
richardwhiuk · 2016-08-19
It's not pretty, but you can: https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/the-shell-challenge-changin…
arto · 2015-06-13
Note that Stallman himself is quite comfortable with his notions about mandatory sharing being enforced through state violence:
"Richard is against abolishing copyrights because, to his view, without copyright, enforcing copyleft would be impossible."
http://rudd-o.com/monopolies-of-the-mind/thoughts-after-my-dinner-with…
bensummers · 2014-12-21
Didn't CoreOS just remove btrfs because it tended to break?
Also: https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better…
jaytaylor · 2014-03-27
Do any of you know why btrfs is being pushed rather than [the more mature and super flexible] zfs?
There is lots of debate if you search google for comparisons, though they usually seem to end up favoring zfs, which is why I'm a little perplexed here.
e.g.
http://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better-…
Notably, I also ran into a show-stopping kernel bug [0] with btrfs within a day or two of the first production rollout of ShipBuilder [1] (it's an open-source self-hosted PaaS Heroku clone). Since switching to zfs there have been zero file-system related issues with any ShipBuilder production or staging environment so far as I am aware.
[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1214085
[1] http://shipbuilder.io
rch · 2014-02-05
My understanding is that btrfs is still in catchup mode for the foreseeable future, but might eventually cover the distance.
Has btrfs jumped ahead of zfs in ways I haven't heard about?
Edit - this is my first search result:
http://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better-…
praxeologist · 2013-12-19
Bitcoin is inherently libertarian: http://rudd-o.com/archives/bitcoin-without-the-politics
If all the libertarians who are into bitcoin suddenly cut down the rhetoric, you think that this will "make bitcoin legitimate technology"? What does that even mean? You mean that governments are going to suddenly be more friendly to bitcoin users? That seems like an incredibly naive belief, sorry.
In general, it is disappointing that people still hold to backwards and primitive beliefs such as democracy and state worship. Statism is institutionalized violence and injustice writ large. I totally understand how your perspective on this can be different, but please understand that what you are calling garbage I see as a call for justice.