Should F2FS be the default root filesystem on ARM?

ARM General ARM Discussion
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Out of interest, why is EXT4 the used for the root file system on Manjaro ARM? Wouldn’t something like F2FS make more sense?

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cause people still use hard drives?

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I’m not aware of any ARM devices supported by Manjaro ARM that do? I guess you can USB boot from some. Fair point.

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This topic has been discussed in depth here before.

https://archived.forum.manjaro.org/t/why-not-install-under-f2fs-instead-of-ext4/124416

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I’m guessing the bottom line is its instability. Ext4 is virtually indestructible

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So… any filesystem gurus around?

I was about to try to use the manjaro-arm-installer to create a SD with f2fs. So I checked the code and darn, not supported. So I thought to modify the code to be compatible with f2fs, but before doing that I revisited the topic with duckduckgo.

I ran across this document which details a very significant reason not to use f2fs on a computer, pi4 included, (I think phones are a bit different).
tldr: f2fs does not recognize write errors… which is a strong reason to never use it.

However, today I found this patch. I am no expert and this code is out of my league, but I think it addresses the issues described for f2fs in the document. If true, it may be time to try f2fs once again… maybe with the 5.15 kernel.

Anyone with a more educated eye, that can determine if I am correct?

Edit: Unfortunately, that patch has not yet been merged, and I don’t think it will be, at least not that version. The existing 5.15-next code does not match. But I think it shows they are working on it.

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