[arch-general] BTRFS integration

[Dieter Plaetinck]

> in my opinion we need to let AIF/etc. integration mature along with
> the FS itself.  this way when BTRFS is marked "stable" the tools will
> be ready as well and it will be a minor transition.

I could not say it better myself.
It always takes a while until the 'experimental' flag is removed in the
kernel, waiting until that happens means waiting too long.  we
should not apply our normal practices (package the latest stable
releases) from normal software to kernel features.  But I think we
should only expose advanced (experimental) stuff to power users.
I was the one who proposed aif --expert on the forums  ;)
So aif patches are definitely welcome.


Did I understand it correctly that you can fix the "cannot promote a 
snapshot to become the default subvolume" problem by just using a
specific named subvolume instead of the default? i.e. it's basically
just a name change, nothing drastic? then that sounds good to me, I
don't know much about btrfs. [1]

About the implementation in aif, it's doable.
after all, i managed to implement LVM, which is kinda similar (you can
put PV's on partitions/devices, use multiple PV's in one VG, put
multiple LV's in 1 VG, and then make normal filesystems (and define
mountpoints) on single LV's).
It's just not very pretty, see http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15640

About the "creating snapshots immediately after performing an
installation" idea:
seems like an interesting feature, which could happen at the end of the
installation process (no reboot needed)

Dieter

[1] except that chris mason is an awesome dude who has contributed to
uzbl.