Linux Mint 10 is the first version of Linux Mint with built-in support for the B-tree File System (btrfs). Btrfs is one of the newest file systems in the Linux kernel.

Ubuntu 10.10 beta is the latest Linux distribution release to have support for the btrfs file system. Btrfs (B-tree File System) is a copy-on-write file system for Linux. It changes how we manage disks on Linux.

This tutorial presents a step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu 10.10 beta on a btrfs file system.

Ubuntu is one of many Linux distributions with support for LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager. LVM is a disk partitioning scheme that brings a level of flexibility to disk management that is not possible with the traditional method. With LVM, you can, if necessary, increase the size of a partition online, that is, while the system is running, without unmounting the partition.

The default journaling file system on non-boot partitions on Ubuntu 11.04 is ext4. Other journaling file systems supported are ext3, xfs, jfs, reiserfs, and btrfs. The journaling file system of interest in this article is btrfs, the B-Tree File System. Btrfs is an ongoing attempt to create a ZFS-like file system for Linux.

Like many recent Linux releases, Mageia's installer supports btrfs, a copy-on-write file system with built-in support for subvolumes, filesystem-based RAID 0/1/10, online resizing, etc.

It is still under development, and not yet recommended for use in a production, but it is already the default file system on MeeGo, and is slated to be the default on Fedora 16.

Fedora 15, the latest stable release of the Red Hat-sponsored Linux distribution, is the first Fedora release to have btrfs as a file system option during the installation process. On earlier versions, you would have had to pass the btrfs option to Anaconda at boot time to install Fedora on a btrfs file system.

While we are still waiting for Btrfs, the B-tree File System, to be mature enough and be used as the default file system in Linux, it is already possible to install your favorite (Linux) distribution on a Btrfs file system. Linux Mint 12 KDE, a distribution based on Ubuntu Desktop, is one of those.

Btrfs, the B-tree File System, is almost at the stage when it will become the default file system on the major Linux distributions. It is already the default on MeeGo, and will, by the next two releases or so, be the default on Fedora.

CentOS 6 now includes eCryptfs which provides the ability to encrypt data and files on a per-file basis instead of the entire disk as in block encryption. The eCryptfs system sits on top of the current file system to provide the encryption layer, that is why it is known as the pseudo-file system.