BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly
about 6 inches square an maybe two inches thick.
A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The
prices are VERY good. Typically two 4k HDMI plugs
(cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is typical.
They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick
SATA laptop drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.

A few months ago I attempted to install Fedora-40
(which was brand new at the time) on a BMAX N95
box (LXDE spin). As I'd mentioned here it was NOT
particularly successful. Wound up using Manjaro
on two such units (I'm OFF debians since Worm).

THIS time however things went quite well (with the
XFCE spin) on an N100 box (N95/N100 are almost
identical - low-end Celeron range laptop chips ...
search "amazon laptop N100"). 16gb RAM + 512gb
NVRam chip - perfect for Linux. This unit was
$149 USD. It DOES come with Win11 ... which I
did not want to run for even a microsecond
for reasons of pride :-)

Procedure : Insert USB drive with Fedora ISO.
Power-up and tap Del and F10 (not sure which
works, so tap 'em both). This brings up the
BIOS menus. Change the default boot drive to
the USB. DO turn on the "last state" option
for restarts (it's easier to find in newer
units - BURIED on older ones) while you're
in there. Set the date/time and such.

Reboot. The Fedora Live should come up automagically.
Like since forever it IS the Anaconda installer
utility you want.

In the drives setup part, choose 'custom' and
manually DELETE everything on the internal SSD.
DIE WINDERS DIE !!!

Then add an EFI partition (maybe 100mb) and
then a "/" partition. EFI should be "sda1" and
the system part "sda2". A variety of partition
types can be had, but for MY uses plain old
EXT4 was the most straight-up by far. Note
Anaconda has a "delete existing partitions
AS NEEDED" default but there's no obvious
"Use Entire Disk" like you see in many other
installers. So, 'custom' is best to get
exactly what you want.

All the other settings were pretty strightforward,
box net name, user/root setup, the usual. Then
you can proceed to the install. I'd suggest
having a live hardwired ethernet connection, but
with Fedora Live MOST of the setup requiring
such seems to be in the immediate post-install
reboot.

Anyway, once installed, reboot and deal with
the typical crap. Then use 'dnfdragora' to
get all the updates. Note the "apply" button
MAY be hidden down at the bottom of your
display (mine was small).

Reboot once more and you're ready. Install
what you will. I'm using TigerVNC for remote
access (or ssh, on alt port). Also installed
SAMBA since I might use this box attached to
some external USB drives as a local storage
center.

Note that in Fedora your 'regular
user' is NOT in /etc/sudoers - you have
to edit and add (and yes you CAN use nano
or whatever, just be careful). Sudo CAN
be adjusted to use the ROOT pw instead
of the 'regular users' - which seems smarter.

Odd bit - in TigerVNC - POP-UP notices,
like password queries, do NOT show up
on the vitual console. Run dnfdragora as
root to get around this. This XFCE also
does not have right-click options like
"add to desktop" on the main menu items,
you have to use 'create shortcut' from
the main screen. Put Tiger into the
'autostart' - works best there and
you can add the '-geometry' and screen
number params. Auto-Login is in a
/etc/lightdm config file - uncomment
and fill in user and grace time.

Finally, note the default (RHEL-type) firewall
is a pain in the ass to figure out how to let
SSH/VNC/etc ports through from the outside.
I *never* use the defaults since that's what
all the bots look for.

Anyway - MUCH better experience this time.
I think the XFCE spin gets more attention
than old LXDE plus the whole system has
had a few months to get past those post-
release bugs. F40 now seems GOOD.

If you don't need all the I/O pins found on
a PI then these cheap little boxes are the
cat's meow for practical Linux uses. The
"low end" CPUs (for Winders concerns) are
"plenty fast" for Linux - an N100 is over
twice as fast as a Pi5. You CAN get BMax/Link
with up to i7's or AMD equivs - but it all
depends on what YOU plan to do.

On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
> square an maybe two inches thick.
> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.

I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and am
very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen 7
4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.

On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>
> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and am
> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen 7
> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.

I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.

In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
good price.

Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
boards these days - something perfect for each need.

As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare :-)

Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
summary of that experience.

On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
>> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
>>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>>
>> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and am
>> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen 7
>> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.
>
> I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
> As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
> low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
> fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.
>
> In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
> I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
> cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
> good price.
>
> Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
> certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
> boards these days - something perfect for each need.
>
> As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
> I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
> that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
> pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
> I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
> work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare :-)
>
> Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
> the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
> figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
> of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
> summary of that experience.
>

A NAS and off site backup solution?

On 8/10/24 5:11 AM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
>>> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>>>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>>>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
>>>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>>>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>>>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>>>
>>> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and am
>>> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen 7
>>> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.
>>
>>  I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
>>  As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
>>  low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
>>  fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.
>>
>>  In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
>>  I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>>  cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
>>  good price.
>>
>>  Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
>>  certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
>>  boards these days - something perfect for each need.
>>
>>  As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
>>  I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
>>  that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
>>  pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
>>  I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
>>  work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare  :-)
>>
>>  Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
>>  the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
>>  figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
>>  of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
>>  summary of that experience.
>>
>
> A NAS and off site backup solution?

Possibly ... I'll have to get creative :-)

I've got a 4-bay external USB-3 unit ... some
12gb Gold drives and ....

I trust the BSDs more for 'security' these days.

OpenBSD is probably the MOST secure, but as a
result it's harder to work with and the DRIVERS
are years behind the hardware curve. That may
or may not be relevant, depending on your app.

On Sat, 10 Aug 2024 04:51:37 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the I/O pins then
> THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
> cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very good price.

I've been putting off getting a Pi 5. However I have a couple of Pico Ws
that have all the IO pins I need. The new Pico 2 in intriguing. The RP2350
ucintroller has 2 Cortex M0+ cores and two RISC-V cores. I know you can
selelct either the Arm or RISC-V set but I don't know if you can do 1 Arm
and one RISV-V. I wonder if the next gen Pi will be similar. There are
several distros that will run on RISC-V processors. Canonical has recently
been working with PIC to put it on their 64 bit development board.

As far as I'm concerned small is beautiful.

On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 8/10/24 5:11 AM, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>>>>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>>>>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
>>>>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>>>>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>>>>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>>>>
>>>> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and am
>>>> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen 7
>>>> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.
>>>
>>>  I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
>>>  As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
>>>  low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
>>>  fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.
>>>
>>>  In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
>>>  I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>>>  cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
>>>  good price.
>>>
>>>  Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
>>>  certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
>>>  boards these days - something perfect for each need.
>>>
>>>  As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
>>>  I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
>>>  that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
>>>  pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
>>>  I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
>>>  work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare  :-)
>>>
>>>  Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
>>>  the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
>>>  figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
>>>  of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
>>>  summary of that experience.
>>>
>>
>> A NAS and off site backup solution?
>
> Possibly ... I'll have to get creative :-)
>
> I've got a 4-bay external USB-3 unit ... some
> 12gb Gold drives and ....
>
> I trust the BSDs more for 'security' these days.
>
> OpenBSD is probably the MOST secure, but as a
> result it's harder to work with and the DRIVERS
> are years behind the hardware curve. That may
> or may not be relevant, depending on your app.

Add to that a sub par filesystem which affects performance as well. But
perhaps it might be possible to compile in suppor for something better?

On 8/10/24 2:41 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024 04:51:37 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the I/O pins then
>> THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>> cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very good price.
>
> I've been putting off getting a Pi 5. However I have a couple of Pico Ws
> that have all the IO pins I need. The new Pico 2 in intriguing. The RP2350
> ucintroller has 2 Cortex M0+ cores and two RISC-V cores. I know you can
> selelct either the Arm or RISC-V set but I don't know if you can do 1 Arm
> and one RISV-V. I wonder if the next gen Pi will be similar. There are
> several distros that will run on RISC-V processors. Canonical has recently
> been working with PIC to put it on their 64 bit development board.
>
> As far as I'm concerned small is beautiful.
>

I bought a couple of P5's ... which is when I first
encountered the numerous annoyances of WORM - the
older Debs won't boot, you just get a nasty message.

I think they CAN be good - seem at least half again
as snappy as the P4's which is more than enough for
a LOT of projects. Waiting on the compatible Fedora,
but it looks like it'll be maybe the end of the year.

NOT sure about running ARM and RISC at the same time.
Arduino "Yun ?" has a uC and something that'll run
Linux and in that case you CAN run 'em both. Not
sure what happens when there's a contention for
some device or I/O .....

Long back they made a chip called a "Transputer".
Each chip (this was 80s tech) communicated with
a bunch of others via some ultraspeed serial-type
links. This left each chip kinda independent,
but not entirely isolated. Parallelism was the goal.
Parallax has its "Propeller" multiprocessor chip as
well that achieves sort of the same effect for those
interested in multiprocessing solutions. In some
respects the NVidia chips are the same idea,
though each "processor" is kinda limited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller

I wonder what could be done with a backplane holding
64 CM4s ? :-)

On 10/08/2024 19:41, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024 04:51:37 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the I/O pins then
>> THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>> cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very good price.
>
> I've been putting off getting a Pi 5. However I have a couple of Pico Ws
> that have all the IO pins I need. The new Pico 2 in intriguing. The RP2350
> ucintroller has 2 Cortex M0+ cores and two RISC-V cores. I know you can
> selelct either the Arm or RISC-V set but I don't know if you can do 1 Arm
> and one RISV-V.

No, according to what I read, this is not possible.

I wonder if the next gen Pi will be similar. There are
> several distros that will run on RISC-V processors. Canonical has recently
> been working with PIC to put it on their 64 bit development board.
>
> As far as I'm concerned small is beautiful.

--
"It is an established fact to 97% confidence limits that left wing
conspirators see right wing conspiracies everywhere"

On 8/10/24 5:19 PM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 8/10/24 5:11 AM, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>>>>>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>>>>>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY
>>>>>> good.
>>>>>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>>>>>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>>>>>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years
>>>>> and am
>>>>> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a
>>>>> Ryzen 7
>>>>> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.
>>>>
>>>>  I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
>>>>  As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
>>>>  low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
>>>>  fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.
>>>>
>>>>  In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
>>>>  I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>>>>  cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
>>>>  good price.
>>>>
>>>>  Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
>>>>  certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
>>>>  boards these days - something perfect for each need.
>>>>
>>>>  As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
>>>>  I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
>>>>  that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
>>>>  pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
>>>>  I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
>>>>  work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare  :-)
>>>>
>>>>  Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
>>>>  the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
>>>>  figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
>>>>  of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
>>>>  summary of that experience.
>>>>
>>>
>>> A NAS and off site backup solution?
>>
>>  Possibly ... I'll have to get creative  :-)
>>
>>  I've got a 4-bay external USB-3 unit ... some
>>  12gb Gold drives and ....
>>
>>  I trust the BSDs more for 'security' these days.
>>
>>  OpenBSD is probably the MOST secure, but as a
>>  result it's harder to work with and the DRIVERS
>>  are years behind the hardware curve. That may
>>  or may not be relevant, depending on your app.
>
> Add to that a sub par filesystem which affects performance as well. But
> perhaps it might be possible to compile in support for something better?

If I were younger I might give it a shot ... but .....

Unix filesystems ... well, they're "fair" but not
really "high performance". Note though that if we
are dealing with external storage/cloud then it
is THEY which are I/O-bound, so any Unix performance
issues become irrelevant. 'Security/solidity' replaces
'performance' as the #1 priority
..
Hey, I spent many years with SS/SD floppies ...
anything faster than those seems "speedy" to me :-)

For Joe User ... stick with EXT4. BtrFS/ZFS have
some nice features, but that comes with a LOT
more complexity and thus undiscovered bugs. For
Unix ... perhaps good old UFS is all you need.

On Mon, 12 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 8/10/24 5:19 PM, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/10/24 5:11 AM, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 10 Aug 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 8/10/24 12:49 AM, rbowman wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 9 Aug 2024 23:20:18 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly about 6 inches
>>>>>>> square an maybe two inches thick.
>>>>>>> A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The prices are VERY good.
>>>>>>> Typically two 4k HDMI plugs (cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is
>>>>>>> typical. They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick SATA laptop
>>>>>>> drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been running Ubuntu 22.04 on a BeeLink for a couple of years and
>>>>>> am
>>>>>> very happy with it. It is a little upscale from your BMAX with a Ryzen
>>>>>> 7
>>>>>> 4700U. It was an experiment that worked out well.
>>>>>
>>>>>  I have both brands - and they're mostly identical hardware.
>>>>>  As said, there are a LOT of configs to be had - from very
>>>>>  low-performance on up. Real i3's and above DO need a cooling
>>>>>  fan however. The "laptop" chips seem to work OK without fans.
>>>>>
>>>>>  In any case, if you really don't need a PI and all the
>>>>>  I/O pins then THESE seem to be THE way to go - compact,
>>>>>  cheap, good performance. Anything you need for a very
>>>>>  good price.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Still have some PIs ... and DO need those I/O pins for
>>>>>  certain needs. NICE to have such a broad selection of
>>>>>  boards these days - something perfect for each need.
>>>>>
>>>>>  As reported, my current experience with Fedora is now GOOD.
>>>>>  I've had weird problems with Deb WORM and have just abandoned
>>>>>  that whole line for now. Manjaro and other Arch derivs ARE
>>>>>  pretty good - but Fedora is just more "general consumer".
>>>>>  I'm too old now to put up with big fights making an OS
>>>>>  work. If you want WORK ... well ... there's always SlackWare  :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>  Oddly, I accidentally ordered TWO BMax ... must have pushed
>>>>>  the "order again" button but seen no effect. Now I have to
>>>>>  figure out what to DO with the extra unit. I've got an ISO
>>>>>  of FreeBSD ... so maybe ........ if so I'll post a little
>>>>>  summary of that experience.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A NAS and off site backup solution?
>>>
>>>  Possibly ... I'll have to get creative  :-)
>>>
>>>  I've got a 4-bay external USB-3 unit ... some
>>>  12gb Gold drives and ....
>>>
>>>  I trust the BSDs more for 'security' these days.
>>>
>>>  OpenBSD is probably the MOST secure, but as a
>>>  result it's harder to work with and the DRIVERS
>>>  are years behind the hardware curve. That may
>>>  or may not be relevant, depending on your app.
>>
>> Add to that a sub par filesystem which affects performance as well. But
>> perhaps it might be possible to compile in support for something better?
>
> If I were younger I might give it a shot ... but .....
>
> Unix filesystems ... well, they're "fair" but not
> really "high performance". Note though that if we
> are dealing with external storage/cloud then it
> is THEY which are I/O-bound, so any Unix performance
> issues become irrelevant. 'Security/solidity' replaces
> 'performance' as the #1 priority

Oh yes... if you insist on using your BSD for slow, micro service/cloud
application, then as you say it makes little difference.

> Hey, I spent many years with SS/SD floppies ...
> anything faster than those seems "speedy" to me :-)

You're a lucky man! That's a nice perspective to have. ;)

> For Joe User ... stick with EXT4. BtrFS/ZFS have
> some nice features, but that comes with a LOT
> more complexity and thus undiscovered bugs. For
> Unix ... perhaps good old UFS is all you need.

I've used UFS in production with good results, ext4 and btrfs as well. In
fact, I do use btrfs on my laptop and only once did I bite myself in the
foot, and once snapshots ate up free space, but apart from those two, I've
had many happy years with btrfs. I even have used the boot from snapshot
functionality once or twice. Most often though, I prefer to do a restore
from my backup server if something goes wrong.

Oh, and just to make sure no one gets the wrong impression, I've never
worked at giga-scale FAANG companies optimizing for every single ns, but
mostly the use cases were simple web/application/database servers.

On Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:07:51 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> For Unix ... perhaps good old UFS is all you need.

Except when UFS isn’t UFS. Seems the different BSDs each have their own,
slightly incompatible version of UFS.