Ubuntu and ZFS on Linux [Status Update]

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Somewhat recently, I posted about Ubuntu enabling ZFS [as the root filesystem] in its operating system installer, alongside other much needed updates. Well, here we are and the Ubuntu 19.10 release is right around the corner. Last Friday, ZFS guided partitioning support was officially merged into the Ubiquity mainline. Ext4 will continue to be the default option.

Ubiquity is a simple graphical live CD installer designed to integrate well with Debian- and Ubuntu-based systems, written largely in Python, using d-i as a backend for many of its functions for ease of maintenance.

Source: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubiquity

Additional work is being made in the ZSYS component, although there will be much left to do and what is pending may need to wait for the 20.04 LTS release instead.

It allows running multiple ZFS systems in parallel on the same machine, get automated snapshots, managing complex zfs dataset layouts separating user data from system and persistent data, and more.

Source: https://github.com/ubuntu/zsys/blob/master/README.md

That aside, I still hope to see better UX integration in the GUI and bootloader management by 20.04.
 

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Published by Petros

Petros Koutoupis is the self appointed BDFL of the RapidDisk project. Most of his career has been in software development in the data storage industry. He is deeply involved in open source software development and for years has written code for the Linux kernel, various open source device drivers and applications in both the embedded and server spaces.