Originally posted by: Nothinman
b) I have yet to see a defragmenter for ext2/3, or resierfs. This is probably because of reason a.
There was/is a defragmenter for ext2 ironically called defrag. But the last time I used it, it required umounting the filesystem and didn't work on filesystems >2G. It was really more of a proof-of-concept thing than anything else. If it still works it should work on ext3 as well, although I don't know what it would do to directory hashes if you had that enabled. And reiserfs, well it's always been crap IMO and it's userland tools were always terrible.
Well, there actually is a defragmenter for ext2...e2defrag. From all I can tell in google searches, though, it is highly recommended to *not* use it. So, nobody try it . Thanks for pointing that out to me...
As for reiserfs...
I use ext3 on my /home partition, simply because I'd be willing to take a 10x speed decrease just for the peace of mind that I have my files on a filesystem that is not going to corrupt itself.
However, for /, I use resierfs. What convinced me to use this intead was two-fold, both from my experiences with a computer with an old 1.2gb HD in it
a) early on, when I was still using MC just to find my way around the directory structure, I found that running a find for a file with ext3 took probably 5x longer, and sounded like the HD's head was going all over the place. The exact same find with reiserfs both ran faster, and was quieter, due to the fact that the disk head was taking a more sane approach. Note that this was with a 2.4 kernel, and it's possible that the anticipatory io scheduler from the 2.6 kernel may reduce this gap a lot.
b) Due to the default cluster sizes being different, and the tail packing feature of reiserfs, I was able to fit significantly more packages on that small 1.2gb drive then I was with ext2/3.
c) Well, this isn't really a reason, but...reiserfs worked then, and was faster. I believe I have stuck with it for no reason other then habit.
d) ext3 is not faster then reiser. I personally have not had any problems with riser other then when I thought for about 5 minutes that I had an ext3 filesystem, and tried to access my linux partition under windows with ext2fs. Even though it claimed to be readonly, it left my reiserfs partition in an unbootable state, which the userspace reiserfs tools corrected enough to allow me to get my data off (which admittitedly was just settings at the time, not "real" data), which messing up the filenames on some obscure files, enough to warrant a reinstall, but not enough for me to not give reiserfs another shot.
So, to sum it up, reiser because once-upon-a-time, I was using a computer slow enough for me to feel/hear the difference. Out of habit, I have continued that tradition except for /home.
So, now I've explained why I personally use reiser...would you mind explaning why you consider reiser so horrible? Please understand that I am not dogmatic about my views, and I greatly enjoy hearing/discussing the views of more experienced people (as I only really have about 3yrs of this stuff under my belt right now, and am constantly trying to learn more).
My apologies if this is getting way too far offtopic...It seems to me that the OP has already gotten his question answered, but, still...I'd be more then willing to take this to PM's., or even drop it entirely, if necessary.