this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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As a full time desktop Linux user since 1999 (the actual year of the Linux desktop, I swear) I wish all you Windows folks the best of luck on the next clean install 👍

...and Happy 30th Birthday "New Technology" File System!

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[–] [email protected] 222 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How do you know when someone uses linux?

Don't worry, they'll tell you

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wouldn’t tell you if I use Linux. I would tell YOU to use Linux. That reminds me… use Linux!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (6 children)

We have extra time to diss Windows since we don’t have to wait for our OS to reboot all the fucking time.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Comment by someone who hasn't used Windows in an age. When was the last time you rebooted because you had installed new software? When was the last time you ran random code from a forum post to make software work? Because this windows user doesn't remember ever doing that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally today. That’s why I brought it up. I installed updates and had to reboot twice to finish the task.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Many Linux package managers themselves tell you you should reboot your system after updates, especially if the update has touched system packages. You can definitely run into problems that will leave you scratching your head if you don't.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (7 children)

*nix systems are not immune to needing reboots after updates. I work as an escalation engineer for an IT support firm and our support teams that do *nix updates without reboots have DEFINATELY been the cause of some hard to find issues. We'll often review environment changes first thing during an engagement only to fix the issue to find that it was from some update change 3 months ago where the team never rebooted to validate the new config was good. Not gonna argue that in general its more stable and usually requires less reboots, but its certainly not the answer to every Windows pitfall.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Haven't used windows in a while huh?

Edit: Just to clarify, I run ALOT of operating systems in my lab; RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu (several LTS flavors), TruNAS, Unraid, RancherOS, ESXi, Windows 2003 thru 2022, Windows 10, Windows 11.

My latest headless Steam box with Windows 11 based on a AMD 5600g basically reboots about as fast as I can retype my password in RDP.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I have extra time because I don't waste my time on making up arguments!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

And boy do you guys ever talk about Windows... Like constantly. Go on any Linux subreddit or community and 8 of the top 10 posts will mention Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The last update to NTFS was in 2004.

The fact that ReFS doesn't even support all the features NTFS does is pathetic.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Genuine question, not being sarcastic.

What’s the benefit to the average end user to modernizing NTFS?

Sure, I love having btrfs on my NAS for all the features it brings, but I’m not a normal person. What significant changes that would affect your average user does NTFS require to modernize it?

I just see it as an “if it’s not broken” type thing. I can’t say I’ve ever given the slightest care about what filesystem my computer was running until I got into NAS/backups, which itself was a good 10 years after I got into building PCs. The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter when I’m reinstalling every few years and have backups elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
  • Near instantaneous snapshots and rollback (would help with system restore etc)
  • Compression that uses a modern algorithm
  • Checking for silent corruption, so users know if their files are no longer correct

I'd add better built in multi-device support and recovery (think RAID and drive pooling) but that might be beyond the "average" user (which is always a vague term and I feel there are many types of users within that average). E.g. users that mod their games can benefit from snapshots and/or reflink copies allowing to make backups of their game dirs without taking up any additional space beyond the changes that the mods add.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Add speed in there

NTFS is slow

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

At the very least, better filesystem level compression support. A somewhat common usecase might be people who use emulators. Both Wii U and PS3 are consoles where major emulators just use a folder on your filesystem. I know a lot of emulator users who are non-technical to the point that they don't have "show hidden files and folders" enabled.

Also your average person wouldn't necessarily need checksums, but having them built into the filesystem would lead to overall more reliability.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (22 children)

Unbelievably, Windows still has a ridiculously short filepath length limit.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nope, long paths are supported since 8.1 or 10 person bit you have to enable it yourself because very old apps can break

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Furthermore, apps using the unicode versions of functions (which all apps should be doing for a couple decades now) have 32kb maximum character length paths.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You want your filesystems to be old and stable. It's new filesystems you want to view with suspicion.. not battle tested.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't really say so. Of course it's not a good idea take the absolutely latest system as your daily driver since it's propably not bugproof yet but also you don't want to use something extremely old just because it's been tested much more because then you're just trading away perfomance and features for nothing. For example ext4 is extremely reliable and the stable version is 15year newer than NTFS.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read « NFTs turns 30 yo ». Definitely need an exorcism.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I did as well. Time to find some mind bleach.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read it as NFTS and was very confused for a minute.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

NFTS: you invest all of your data into it, and it grows and grows until it suddenly disappears as you discover it was a scam all along.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (9 children)

It is weird to me that Microsoft hasn't updated the file system in so long. They were going to with Longhorn/VIsta but that failed and it seems like they've been gunshy ever since.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You don’t sound like you weren't around the Windows Vista/Longhorn development days when they promised a successor to NTFS and then over the course of the next couple of years, would bail on that (and nearly every other promise made).

WinFS: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-product-regret-winfs/

And FWIW, they are developing ReFS, which looks like it will finally supplant NTFS, but given MS’ business model, don’t expect NTFS to ever really disappear.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Can it die now? ZFS all the things!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use both. I like Linux better, even more since W10. It's spyware, crap, all those nasty things. But hey, I'm a pc gamer and, sadly enough, my games (80% of them) all get funcky in Linux (wine, playonlinux,... I tried it all), so guess I'm stuck with the crap. But again, Linux is far better and superior

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When's the last time you tried gaming on Linux? Valve has made a ton of progress with Proton in the last few years.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's been a few months now, so I guess I could try it again

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[–] Tramdan 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This might sound ignorant but that's cause I am. Why doesn't windows just use ext4, btrfs, XFS, or something open source. They wouldn't have to worry about developing it so it'd be a load off their chest and they could get really good features that even NTFS doesn't have. Well maybe not with ext4 but with btrfs

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Microsoft really really hated open source some time ago. Now they seem to have embraced it, however some still think that might be an attempt to EEE.

Still, I suppose Microsoft doesn't think replacing the Windows default filesystem is a sound investment at this point even if the political resistance to such a change is, supposedly, gone.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why should they use anything else if NTFS had being great for 30 years?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Not Terribly Fast System

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