I just installed Bluefin LTS and wanted to copy over my data from my previous installation but it is on a btrfs partition. It looks like being based on CentOS Stream Bluefin LTS does not have btrfs set up in the kernel. Is there any way to mount the btrfs partition from Bluefin LTS? I know rpm ostree overlays are not supported, which I would otherwise try. (I guess I can make a live ISO of a system that supports btrfs and copy the data over with that).
During installation of Bluefin LTS I believe you can deviate from the default config by choosing for BTRFS. I was quite surprised how easily they chose to just go for XFS by default while all user friendly distros use btrfs. Ofc that will lead to usability issues. But it was better from a managing/updating perspective.
I think it’s a few steps back for end users. I also don’t see any guide how to make sure during installation, you end up with btrfs. Which surprised me as well. Hopefully it’s easy.
I think the Bluefin LTS installer might use the same OS as the other Bluefin versions and so be Fedora based and have the btrfs kernel driver, but you do not want to use it because Bluefin LTS does not have a btrfs kernel driver. – Nope, I booted back into the Bluefin LTS installer and it does not have a btrfs driver.
Bluefin LTS has a zfs driver so I wonder if it would be reasonable to include a btrfs driver as well but that might be a political question.
XFS is what’s used in RHEL and CentOS. It’s a simpler filesystem and therefore generally more stable than btrfs. Though there are still issues with simpler filesystems, such as lacking checksumming and other data integrity features.
I’m not sure if Bluefin LTS will ever support it. In RHEL and CentOS, btrfs is a deprecated feature and I believe removed from the kernels. Bluefin would either have to compile their own kernel or use some dkms/akmods to add support in, like how NVIDIA drivers work.
So with GTS disappearing (something I read in the blog. It would disappear from the main download page which means eventually drop to near zero users so no need to continue to support it), there is no Bluefin version supporting BTRFS except the bleeding edge version for enthusiasts?
I don’t understand how a Linux OS for the 96% can be just that without btrfs support 
Will Bazzite keep supporting it? And Aurora?
I think the correct thing to say here is not that it has been removed from the kernels, but rather that Red Hat has decided not to compile them into the kernel that they release.
Bluefin would either have to compile their own kernel or use some dkms/akmods to add support in, like how NVIDIA drivers work.
Right, or the zfs drivers, so there are precedents. I think the cost/benefit might not work out for supporting btrfs though since it is not as strategically important as zfs (btrfs is better supported by the upstream kernel than nvidia or zfs though so it might need less maintenance). I wasn’t looking to run Bluefin LTS on btrfs, just an easy way to mount another partition formatted with btrfs so I could access it from Bluefin LTS.
I don’t get what this means? Feel free to choose custom partitioning and select btrfs. Stock LTS will never support it because CentOS Stream doesn’t support it and we’re choosing their kernel on purpose. Or just stick to the Fedora builds.
To the OP: btrfs support is included in the hwe branch if you want to use it, you should be able to rebase to that to read the partition you want to copy data from: Introduction to Bluefin LTS | Bluefin
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To the OP: btrfs support is included in the hwe branch if you want to use it, you should be able to rebase to that to read the partition you want to copy data from: Introduction to Bluefin LTS | Bluefin
It worked, thanks! I hadn’t thought of this but it makes sense – I think the hwe kernel is coming from Fedora (Bluefin non-LTS) and so has btrfs built in.
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