The community Linux distribution, AlmaLinux, has just added Btrfs filesystem support in the AlmaLinux 10.1. Btrfs, for those that don’t know, is a modern Copy-on-Write (CoW) filesystem that focuses on fault tolerance, repair, and easy administration. It has become a popular default choice in recent years with Fedora and openSUSE using it by default.
For those not familiar with AlmaLinux, it’s a binary-compatible distribution with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), supported by its community rather than Red Hat. It gives businesses and individuals a way to run a system nearly identical to RHEL without the need for a commercial subscription.
Some of the key features of Btrfs are snapshotting for more reliable backups, built-in volume management, checksumming for data and metadata, transparent compression, and efficient copying via reflinks. With these features, Btrfs delivers better performance for most workloads and stronger resistance against bitrot and storage issues.
Talking more about the Btrfs support, AlmaLinux said:
“Btrfs support encompasses both kernel and userspace enablement, and it is now possible to install AlmaLinux OS with a Btrfs filesystem from the very beginning. Initial enablement was scoped to the installer and storage management stack, and broader support within the AlmaLinux software collection for Btrfs features is forthcoming.”
To use Btrfs, during the installation process you must select custom partitioning and choose a Btrfs partitioning system. When you do this, AlmaLinux will be installed on Btrfs, rather than the default XFS-LVM configuration. XFS is a very good choice if you have traditional, high-performance, and mature enterprise workload and Btrfs is the best when it comes to feature-rich, flexible, and modern workloads where data integrity and easy rollback are critical.
The release of AlmaLinux 10.1 followed that of AlmaLinux 10.0 back in May, which was the first to be fully compatible with RHEL 10. It introduced expanded hardware support, a technical preview of KVM virtualization support for the IBM Power architecture, full support for the Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment (SPICE) for both server and client applications, Secure Boot support for both Intel/AMD and ARM platforms, extended x86-64-v2 supports to help keep older hardware alive for ten more years, as well as frame points being switched on by default to help software developers with system-wide real-time tracing and profiling for performance optimization.
To learn more about AlmaLinux 10.1, check out the announcement.