Which file system works best?

[Member rallan]

Between FAT32, ext 3 and 4, or some other file system, has one in particular been found to work better with antix than any other? I can’t find any recommendation in the manual, and a search here comes up empty.

[Member sybok]

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Hi, I am not an expert but describing your use case would help to decide.
E.g.
1) Desktop/workstation for regular use, no fancy “stuff”.
2) Do you plan to make snapshots of your systems and/or do you expect roll-back may be necessary?
3) …
Possibly (my speculation), your type of hard-drive type could make a difference.

[Member rallan]

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I have put my Quick Info output at the end of this post.

Executive Summary: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X bits: 64 type, with a NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] card, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD for the main drive. It’s a desktop. MXLinux19.4-AHS-5.10.0 is my OS. ext4 is my file system.

I have a second spare HDD sitting idle in its own bay, I am thinking of installing antiX on it.

Up until now I have only used antiX as a liveUSB. I started out with FAT32 then switched to ext4. I re-installed antiX with MX Live USB Maker, which as you know is tailored for antiX and MXLinux installations.

Since the switch three apps that I installed – and were working for a while – stopped working. The apps that came bundled with the installation all seem fine.

Is there a cardinal rule that a liveUSB – regardless of the OS – must run on FAT32, and not on any other type of file system?

I dislike FAT32 because it lacks journaling.

System: Host: <filter> Kernel: 5.10.0-4mx-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-4mx-amd64
root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0
Distro: MX-19.4_x64 patito feo November 11 2020 base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME A320M-K v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter>
UEFI: American Megatrends v: 5603 date: 10/14/2020
CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen
family: 17 (23) model-id: 1 stepping: 1 microcode: 8001138 L2 cache: 2048 KiB
flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 55894
Speed: 3422 MHz min/max: 1550/3500 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1547
2: 1547 3: 1496 4: 2992 5: 1544 6: 1542 7: 1497 8: 2988
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
Type: l1tf status: Not affected
Type: mds status: Not affected
Type: meltdown status: Not affected
Type: spec_store_bypass
mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2
mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
Type: srbds status: Not affected
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau v: kernel
bus ID: 07:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0a65
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
resolution: 1920×1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVA8 v: 3.3 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: NVIDIA High Definition Audio vendor: eVga.com. driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus ID: 07:00.1 chip ID: 10de:0be3
Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus ID: 09:00.3 chip ID: 1022:1457
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-4mx-amd64
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A driver: r8169 v: kernel port: f000 bus ID: 05:00.0
chip ID: 10ec:8168
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
Drives: Local Storage: total: 2.74 TiB used: 176.43 GiB (6.3%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0A size: 931.51 GiB
block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 90WD
scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EZEX-08WN4A0 size: 931.51 GiB
block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm
serial: <filter> rev: 1A02 scheme: MBR
ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Lexar model: USB Flash Drive size: 14.62 GiB
block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1100 scheme: GPT
ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA100 size: 931.51 GiB
block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 929.23 GiB size: 913.65 GiB (98.32%) used: 175.96 GiB (19.3%)
fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 486.0 MiB (23.7%) fs: swap
swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/sda3
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 35.8 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 55 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos: No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib non-free
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib non-free
2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dropbox.list
1: deb [arch=i386,amd64] http://linux.dropbox.com/debian buster main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/geogebra.list
1: deb http://www.geogebra.net/linux/ stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
1: deb https://muug.ca/mirror/mx-packages/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
2: deb https://muug.ca/mirror/mx-packages/mx/repo/ buster ahs
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nordvpn.list
1: deb https://repo.nordvpn.com//deb/nordvpn/debian stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/slack.list
1: deb https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian/ jessie main
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list
1: deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yandex-disk.list
1: deb http://repo.yandex.ru/yandex-disk/deb/ stable main
Info: Processes: 280 Uptime: 1d 1h 44m Memory: 7.77 GiB used: 3.87 GiB (49.8%)
Init: SysVinit v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8
Shell: quick-system-in running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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antiX (and MX) live on a usb stick uses ext4 not fat32.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Wallon]

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Hello to all.

I use ext2 formatting for USB sticks because there is no journaling.
Two advantages;
a) it uses less the USB keys,
b) faster than ext4 formatting which does journaling.
I use an EATON UPS with battery on my desktop. I’m not afraid of a power cut.
On my laptop there is a battery so I am not afraid of a power cut either.

Best regards,
Wallon

[Member rallan]

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I re-installed antiX on my USB and will stick with ext4, see how it goes.

I don’t find ext4 slow, it is blazing fast on my system.

[Member Wallon]

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Dear rallan,

Please read the comments on Wikipedia about ext2 for USB key /stick; “ext2 is still the filesystem of choice for flash-based storage media (such as SD cards and USB flash drives) because its lack of a journal increases performance and minimizes the number of writes, and flash devices can endure a limited number of write cycles.”

In ext4, you also have the option of turning the journaling feature “off”.

Best regards,
Wallon

[Moderator christophe]

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I have read about ext2 as Wallon points out — less writes to the usb stick. But the antiX live USB maker uses ext4 (as anticapitalista pointed out). I have found that to work just fine. I have not lost a usb stick since I started with antiX a few years ago. So I would recommend the standard: ext4.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member rallan]

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Very good info!

antiX with ext4 runs very fast on my particular liveUSB system, no complaints there. I was thinking about getting a low-end computer and loading it with antiX, performance the last time I did something like that was pretty good, best OS I ever had on that machine. The FS was ext4, I used it then as a HTC. This time I would like to use it for coding graphics&animation as well, led me to inquire if there is a FS out there that could squeeze a performance boost out of a low-end computer – and still journal.

I installed MX for RaspPi on my Rasp Pi 3 and it is way too slow, it’s unworkable. But I did not check the FS. With what I have learned today if the FS is ext4 I will shut off the journaling then see how it goes.

[Author]

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