Installation on SSD

[linuxfluesterer]

Hallo guys...
Now I've ordered an ssd device, an Intel 330 series with 240 GByte.
I'm learning about NILFS2 file system because I would like to install Sabayon X KDE on ssd partition with NILFS2.
I want only ONE partition / . That means, I must can boot from this files system.
As all I see, nilfs2 is not part of initramfs (a must for booting).
So how can I add nilfs2 to initramfs for correct boot?

And, maybe someone knows, how can I install SL X from Livecd into a nilfs2-partition?
For Ubuntu, I've found this.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/115397/how-do-i-install-12-04-onto-a-nilfs-root-partition
But I don't find

Code: Select all

sudo echo nilfs2 >> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
sudo update-initramfs -u

on Sabayon. So, what can I do to extend Sabayon initramfs with nilfs2 module?
I've already created such an nilfs2 partition manually, but while installing procedure with livecd, I see 'unknown fs' in partitioning tool of installer.
And nilfs is NOT listed.

I do all this testing on a mechanical hdd now. I want to learn before to prevent mistakes and then create for optimal results on working with ssd.
Btw. What about Grub configuration? Does it work with nilfs?

Thank you in advance...

-Linuxfluesterer (I love KDE ...)

[anomaly65]

re: nilfs2

I think this is "one" time where an additional partition becomes a "mandatory yes" if only to keep your system simple to manage and upgrade as time moves forward I also prefer only a single partition, but for your requirements, I would allow for two+ partitions.

If one partition is an absolute requirement for you (we all have our "yes please" lists!), you're squarely back into gentoo territory and building your own kernels to accomplish that. I have done so and have continued that for years (still have half a dozen servers "out there" running gentoo; yes, I still enjoy building packages and coding/building/tuning kernels myself, but not for my primary desktop). Unless that's a place/practice you enjoyed before Sabayon, I'd definitely recommend against it, as every upgrade will be your own battle/kernel to build

I seriously doubt you'll notice any significant performance difference between any of the more common (and thus, more mature) filesystems on an SSD. I had terrible experiences with btrfs, but that's just my experience, and a few kernel revisions ago, and the filesystem architecture didn't impress me enough to stay with it while it gained stability. The lesson from that experience was to avoid anything that isn't mainlined into the kernel code, and doesn't have a seriously decent and extensive track record. "standard disclaimers apply" (I hope that translates well).

Should you wish, you can follow the instructions using sabayon-sources to build a sabayon kernel that does include the module you'd like to have.
https://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?titl ... _genkernel

I sincerely hope this translates as "polite with a standard warning" and is ok. Courteous and cautious thought intended
cheers, and happy new year,
andy

[linuxfluesterer]

Hallo Andy.
Thank you very much for your patience and your detailed reply.
I've read your warnings with caution also and I agree to you, better to use the mainline features of SL X distro then.
So, the only question for me for file system on ssd is: XFS or (like I use now for magnet hdd) JFS.
I've read in some posts, that ext4 isn't a really good choice.
On the other hand, I read also, Google company uses ext4 for their ssd.

Anyway, I'll find my personal solution without compiling new kernels or so. Maybe later, maybe.

Thanks to you all, my friends here.

I wish for all of us:
A Happy New Year
with health and success. And I hope, that this distro Sabayon and its users will develop fine.

Cheers,

-Linuxfluesterer (I love KDE ...)

[anomaly65]

Hope that helps.

xfs and jfs are both quite mature. XFS is very stable on SSD's (I simply have no experience with JFS, but considered it years prior to retail SSD availability, so my analysis indicated "solid" at that time, I have no info/research on SSD's with JFS.....).

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTA0NzM

a rather opinionated key XFS developer (aren't all key devs?) has a few comments. His aim at BTRFS is right on the money (btrfs was not production quality when his presentation was made; I tried it and it had consistent, repeatable "system stall" issues), and although it has improved, I was not significantly impressed by the underlying architecture from a filesystems design standpoint. I've managed a few petabyte filesystems on XFS without a problem (VERY different environment from a desktop PC, but linux nonetheless), and migrated my own desktop and 19Tbyte home server to XFS (very solid toolset included) a few years ago. Just my personal preference (we all have those as well!).

here's my own SSD root partition (no separate /boot either) /etc/fstab entry, I changed "defaults" to the following:

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UUID=d25ebf93-6e79-4c83-acdd-2de5f7d6762d /           xfs     ssd,discard,noatime,nodiratime        0 0

yes, xfs has no fsck (this is internal to the mount process; and if the filesystem is in very bad shape, xfs_repair command is available, and does work).

Good luck!!!
cheers,
andy

[anomaly65]

Linuxfluesterer,

I stumbled upon Sabayon a few years ago (v3 or before?) and it's been very very good, the devs are super polite and helpful, the community is very intelligent (ubuntu has more beginners, still a nice place, but I just don't like the "1989 macos 2d look" of gnome:-) ), and no one here acts like the forums of debian (often rather blunt "RTFM" answers to new users....). Sabayon has the pre-compiled and working out of the box gentoo flavor that is hard to beat, and one can always refer back into the gentoo forums (also nice, bright people) for very sticky issues, and build code from gentoo sources often without significant interference with the main Sabayon entropy package management.

Forgive if this isn't funny, but I'd call Sabayon the distro for those over age 40 (myself in particular) who used to really enjoy compiling all their own code, or for those who just like a very decently optimized/compiled system out of the box that just works:-) Best of both worlds!

Cheers,
andy