“As Linux grows up, it aims to satisfy different users and
potential situations’ needs. During recent years, we have seen
Linux acquire different capabilities and be used in many
heterogeneous situations. We have Linux inside micro-controllers,
Linux router projects, one floppy Linux distribution, partial 3-D
hardware speedup support, multi-head Xfree support, Linux games and
a bunch of new window managers as well. Those are important
features for end users. There has also been a huge step forward for
Linux server needs — mainly as a result of the 2.2.x Linux
kernel switch. Furthermore, sometimes as a consequence of
industry support and others leveraged by Open Source community
efforts, Linux is being provided with the most important commercial
UNIX and large server’s features. One of these features is the
support of new file systems able to deal with large hard-disk
partitions, scale up easily with thousands of files, recover
quickly from crash, increase I/O performance, behave well with both
small and large files, decrease the internal and external
fragmentation and even implement new file system abilities not
supported yet by the former ones.”
“This article is the first in a series of two, where the reader
will be introduced to the Journal File Systems: JFS, XFS, Ext3, and
ReiserFs. Also we will explain different features and concepts
related to the new file systems above. The second article is
intended to review the Journal File Systems behaviour and
performance through the use of tests and benchmarks.”