[Pkg-zfsonlinux-devel] Summary of ZFS on Linux for Debian

[Aron Xu]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 1:58 AM, Turbo Fredriksson <turbo at bayour.com> wrote:
> On Jun 12, 2015, at 7:00 PM, Aron Xu wrote:
>
>> After the upload, we tried to talk with Debian installer team on how
>> to maintain an out-of-tree kernel module for the installer but
>> unfortunately it's not feasible at the moment.
>
> Just want to chip in with my two cent here and clarify parts of this.
>
>
> What this actually means is that getting ZoL into Debian GNU/Linux
> won't be much of a problem. We just need to wait for the bureaucracy
> to do it's work. We might have to modify the packages we already have
> in smaller ways to fully adhere to the Debian GNU/Linux packaging
> policies etc, but we'll get it in "eventually". Hopefully "soon".
>

The use of "bureaucracy" is quite overly speaking, for the whole long
time we've spent too much time on waiting a legal advice on how to
proceed, and the current blocking factor is my time and blame should
go to me. Well I promise to do the upload ASAP.

>
> The Debian GNU/Linux installer team feel that having out-of-tree modules
> is to much of a hassle and can/will lead to maintenance problems - keeping
> this in sync.
>
> Technically, I somewhat agree with them, but the feeling from the
> pkg-zfsonlinux team is that we might be able to do that. The keyword
> here is unfortunately "might"… We're all very busy people, and if we're
> out of touch for a short time, their worries will be fulfilled.
>

I think we should (and probably have to) honor the decision of the
installer team, Debian people are mostly (if not all) volunteers, and
the project itself does not hire anyone. Not having ZFS available as
root filesystem is something not optimal but it's still good to have
it officially all in all.

>
> Now, ALL is not lost. I have done some experimentation with using
> zfs-fuse in the installer to create and mount the filesystem(s), and
> then use ZoL and the dkms process in the resulting install.
>
> Tests have shown that this is very possible, but it will need more
> work and quite a lot of more testing to be fully stable and something
> that we, as a distribution, can offer to our users.
>

zfs-fuse is not supported anymore, and it could be removed from Debian
someday, so this could not be the best way to go. I talked with the
Debian maintainer of zfs-fuse years ago and he proposed to remove it
after we get this native implementation land in the archive. I will
sync with him after we got this accepted and see if we want to use
zfs-fuse for installer.

>
> We could also ignore all this and not offer ZFS as an install option,
> and require users to install on some other filesystem, and then install
> ZFS once the system reboots into the new install.
>
> This is very likely to be the first step, once ZoL have been fully
> accepted into the FTP archives.
>
>
> A third, highly theoretical solution, might be to offer downloadable
> kernel modules outside the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, much like
> many graphical drivers etc (adobe reader is one such I think) is
> provided.
>

This is the quickest solution IMHO, :)

Cheers,
Aron