[lproven]

> Yawn. You again.

Yep, me again.

You know that line from the James Bond books?

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

I saw Btrfs die so many times, I know what to suspect.

The official internal guidance was: give it all your disk space. Make the volumes so big that they will never fill up.

Well, if I could trust it, I might, but I know I can't trust it, so I want my data safe somewhere else. And the company wouldn't provide me with 2 or 3 disk drives so `/home` could live on another physical volume.

And once you've watched your primary work OS self-destruct again, well, if you're me, you reinstall with dual-boot so you have something else to fall back on if it happens again. As it did happen again. Repeatedly.

> You have total recall of recoiling in horror? What a trip... ;-)

OK, my bad. Brain/finger error.

> why not just use slashpkg, Gobolinux or similar stuff?

Slashpkg means DJB's thing?

https://cr.yp.to/slashpackage.html

That sounds fantastic. Thanks. I had never heard of this before.

Re Gobo -- yes please. I love that little distro.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

> DJB' thing.

Yes. It's looking a little bit abandoned, but there is more to it than that single URL.

Maybe a dozen small sites, globally, collecting 'recipes', and still very incomplete.

Partial overlap with hardcore refuseniks who prefer different init-systems, libc's and building whole mini-distros around other concepts. Starting and running f...ing fast.

Yes, in containers/VM's too.

Since you are a writer, you could create some nice stories about the different systems-universes, which could have been if only... ;-)

Which also could help with your PTSD regarding Btrfs, which you DO suffer from.

Lemme tell you why that is from my POV:

I didn't use it in it's early days. So whatever imperfections of its code and tools, or interactions with kernels/libraries of that time escaped me.

I tortured it by pulling the power plug of the systems it's running on multiple times, under different conditions. Like from mostly idling to extreme load. Dozens of times, meanwhile. Sometimes full to the brim. I'm using it on everything, ranging from internal SATA-SSD, NVME, and external disks(real rotating rust) even over f...ing USB2 with UASP. Even using some compression, no DEDUP or RAID though. Still nothing bad ever happened.

Maybe because I'm using it on a 'gaming-distro', often considered b0rkn by 'professionals? Shrug?

So whenever I'm seeing you rambling about that stuff, that's what you'll get from me:

Shrug?

(Until it happens to me, then I'll shout I repent! I repent! Such brazen foolishness of mine! Forgive my ignorance!)

[lproven]

> Maybe because I'm using it on a 'gaming-distro'

Bazzite or something?

So, no Snapper. So, no background OS component writing to the root volume.

So, you are not affected by the problem I describe and have documented at length.

As a result you think I am lying.

Seems to me you're unable to follow a chain of reasoning.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Err, no. CachyOS. Initially with snapper, and it's still installed, but any automagicals disabled. As are the pacman hooks using it. Because I have no real need for them, and the potential hassle they can cause(If you do letting them run into oblivion). Btrfs has other, very convenient qualites.

My reasoning is you can perfectly use it, while having the ability to do manual snapshots, if you think you must, which I don't, because I(usually) know what and how to do. But not like you did use it.

[lproven]

Fair enough.

I tried it, twice.

2024...

https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/cachyos_arch_linux/

2025...

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/20/cachyos_distrowatch/

It's fine but it does nothing I especially want or need. Alpine is faster, for instance.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

I like it because I know my ways around Arch, which I've used for a long time in the past. I liked Alpine less, whenever I've tried it, which last time was about two years ago. When I got 'new' hardware, and wondered if I just should go on like before, or look at what has happened elsewhere, broaden ones horizons, so to speak.

Being fast is no problem when running from and IN RAM, which it can do. But so is Antix, which turns Debian into a screaming pig on fire. In the end, it felt like it had too many annoying 'guardrails'(Distro conventions, expectations) while having much less ready-made stuff to offer than Debian.

With 32GB RAM, boosted even further by ZRAM layered on top of all of it, it's not that important anymore. Especially when using https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon which puts the "OS-within-the-OS" (any relevant browser) into RAM too, or rather it's profile, which speeds things up really good, while at the same time lessening the load on your SSD, and I/O in general.

Rock solid and stable, like the rest of the system too. In spite of being called 'Gamer distro'. (On my hardware and config, nerdy naysayers don't need apply, kthxbai)

Kasheex!

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Addendum: I've reskimmed the two articles you linked, and can only think of you were holding it wrong :-) Several points, one I think I've already written about to you.

That trying out distros in whichever VM is almost useless for evaluating performance, because fucking VM! Also the used drivers are different. The only thing they are useful for may be testing the general installation process in advance, to see if anything wanted is missing, the defaults, if they are changeable to ones own preferences, or whatever.

The perceived slowness of the installer on bare metal. Again: Waddya talkin' äbbout?!

It all went by in a whoosh, and then it was ready to use. Maybe that W520 is crappy somehow? My install was on a machine from the same company, but different model.

M910q tiny with Kaby Lake Core i5-7500t, 32GB. Whoosh! Zoom! Motion blur!1!!

Needed internet connection, metered?!

I have flat rated and unlimited redundant fibre into my homes.

Who cares about Distrowatch? That is not a reliable indicator of popularity, because it can easily be manipulated.

Where was I? Uh... never mind...