[arch-general] Update to 4.15.8 on dual quad-core box locked on ( 3/16) Install DKMS modules, need help resurecting

[Carsten Mattner]

It almost looks like filesystem development doesn't fit Linux kernel
development style
of iterating constantly and evolving with time. btrfs has had the same
time as zfs
had in-house at Oracle before it was declared publicly stable, and
there are still
buggy/unfinished corners.

If you look at past successful Linux filesystems it's either an existing design
that was generally amenable to certain extensions and has evolved in-tree or
came designed and implemented from a different platform (JFS, XFS, quite a few
more). EXT4 is the reliable workhorse if inodes aren't a problem and you don't
mind time to allocate and upper bounds thereof. It evolved step by step from
EXT2 to EXT3 to EXT4, all the while having stable core features and experimental
features. btrfs is busy implementing features promised 10 years ago and there
are bugs in regular use if you're not careful.

Developing a filesystem is hard and there's no room for mistakes. Most
productive
filesystem development is happening in XFS and EXT4 teams with the former being
in a nice stable maintenance mode. If you haven't tried XFS in the last 3 years,
give it a test run. The old issues of being optimized for certain workloads have
been fixed years ago. It's a good replacement for EXT4 if you need its features
and tools.