"With the introduction of the 2.4 Linux kernel in early 2001, a
wide variety of new filesystem possibilities emerged. The most
exciting aspect of most of these new filesystems was based on a new
technology that would make the new filesystems for Linux much more
stable and easier to retrieve after crashes. The technology is
called journalling, and it will have a huge impact on Linux
installations of the present and future.
"Currently, there's no real leader in the technology of
journalling filesystems under GNU/Linux. Some of them are older as
open source projects, but none have been adopted across the board
as a de facto standard for Linux distributions. That's part of what
makes them interesting. Each has a slightly different method or
implementation. In this series of articles, we hope to shed some
light on these new technologies and show you some of the benefits
you can take advantage of by implementing them..."