Linus Torvalds calls Apple's file system "utter crap"
By Donald Melanson 
posted February 5th 2008 2:34PM
posted February 5th 2008 2:34PM
Linus Torvalds may have dabbled in Apple territory in the past, but he's definitely not mincing any words about competing operating systems now. In a recent interview, Linus says that OS X is a "much better system" than Windows Vista overall, but that "in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for." Apparently these problems are rooted firmly in OS X's file system (HFS and HFS+), which he describes as "complete and utter crap," and even "scary." Of course, Torvalds also took the opportunity to tout the many virtues of Linux, which he says is an "obvious choice for anything from full-blown PCs to phones or video players." Damn straight it is.
[Photo courtesy of AP, thanks Ash]
[Photo courtesy of AP, thanks Ash]
Do you even KNOW what ZFS has to OFFER 99.9999999999999999% of Apple's customers...or are you too guilty of "Ooo...shiny!!" spec war dick wagging?
Tell me...what great problem does ZFS solve for all of those iMac users out there, exactly?
Hmmmm...
I know that if Apple is changing filesystem to a new one, they must realize that it's "crap" too or "not efficient" enough.
They must have a good reason for the switch and quickly looking it looks like a much more efficient filesystem than HFS+, besides the statement that HFS equals crap is based on it's specs so why not compare the specs here?
I think ZFS solves the problem of HFS+ being crappy according to Linus :)
ZFS offers instant Time Machine (can snapshot entire drive with zero cost copy-on-write), which might be a nice feature for an average joe.
It offers drive pooling. No re-partitioning pains. You just buy new drive, connect it and your total disk space (and/or reliability) increases. RAID without all the fuss is a pretty nice feature too.
I think the most complicated thing is to write a program for Linux, because there's not that Linux! Every Distribution has it's own managing tool and sometimes even a whole different folder structure, not to speak about dependencies!
HFS(+) may be a crap, but it works. Where a linux package doesn't likely if it's not in a repository of the distribution.
I think Linux has it's marketplace in the mobile and server industry, where Apple focuses in the desktop maket. I'm sitting at a table with a PC (Windows), NIT (Linux) and Notebook (Mac OS X).
Ohhh Fan Boys you give us sooooo many hours of amusment.
this is JUST his opinion of an OS! I use or have used all three Winows XP & Vista Apple and Linux and found them all to be truly lacking in different ways, Apple to inflexible and dictatorial, Wndows incomplete & bug ridden and Linux a cottage industry product great in some areas non existent in others!
They are programs not a way of life, no matter what their respective producers would have you belive!
I realized the suckage of HFS+ after my ex's iBook managed to corrupt around 50 digital pictures, along with other image files (PSDs and such). I haven't looked through what else I had on that machine to see if any of my documents were corrupted, too.
I've never had that happen - ever - on FAT32, NTFS, RieserFS, or ext3, for the record. I won't be trusting HFS+ ever again with any documents or files that actually matter to me.
Not on FAT32? I call it a bluff.
I kid you not.
The only problems I have had in Windows with files was when I was using a 160GB drive on pre-SP1 XP, which didn't have native support for drives larger than 137GB. A few files disappeared, but that was remedied by partitioning the drive.
Nothing has corrupted my pictures and files the way that HFS+ did on that iBook. There's an easy solution - store my data on a FAT32 volume in OS X, and leave Windows to handle files larger than 4GB. Or, like I have on my iBook right now, I have a few things in an HFS+ volume, but I just don't put anything important on the iBook. It's not worth the risk.
..."complete and utter crap"? Yeah?! Well, you wear a bolo tie. Not exactly the arbiter of good taste, now are you? I'd say given that, your taste in fashion is dubious, at best. Which makes me think his opinion is "complete and utter crap".
Two questions from the "not a filesystem geek" crowd:
1. Is there a layman's explanation of filesystems that would give me an idea about the differences involved here? I am reasonably facile with *NIX from some administrative perspectives, but the filesystem thing is out on the boundaries of my knowledge.
2. Why wouldn't Apple fix things? More complicated for them and their users than it's worth? Are they trying to do it by degrees? Or are they really that dumb?
"OS X would be nothing with out open source."
Give me a break. Long before there was Linux, there was NEXTSTEP. That's the basis for OS X. Yes, OS X incorporates open source, but there's a lot more to it than that. Linus is ticked off because Linux *still* blows on the desktop. No one other than hardcore nerds wants to touch it.
I'm sick of hearing about Linux on the desktop. It hasn't happened and it never will. A handful of diehards will keep the vision alive, I suppose. The rest of us will buy Macs and get to work. Also, for the record, OS X is *not* based on Linux as others have suggested. It's BSD Unix and it predates Linux by quite a bit.
To raysico：
在台湾，"file"被译为档案，也就是大陆说的文件。
虽然是大陆人，还是觉得台湾的很多译法更为恰当。
My Personal Wake Up Call: I used to think that geeks had some sort of corner on intelligence that was proprietary and exclusive to all most other members of the human race. I went from hating geeks in the seventh grade to envying them as they used their smarts to hack bridges from their world into ours, which has transformed our world into a digital realm where the exchange of information is not only faster than ever before, but freer than we will ever be. For although we may be free to express (even broadcast) our opinions however we wish with little sense of accountability or civility that we would probably hope for in our face-to-face interactions, the way that so many of us choose to make use of this new and powerful freedom of expression is immature beyond belief.
And speaking of beliefs, after reading all of these comments, one can't help but hang one's head in shame for a forum where bona-fide and possibly valuable information has to be carefully culled from a sludge-pit of in-fighting, squabbling, back-biting, quibbling, one-upmanship, and scapegoating. This community is little more than a post-modernized replica of the divisive political, cultural, and religious bickering that keeps us from working together towards a common purpose.
The wake up call to this group is that operating systems are operating systems, and while they may be constantly evolving, they are no more perfect than the many people who have worked hard to develop them. Why waste your precious time by taking stands that place you in pseudo-alignment with other subscribers like you who know little more than to idolize or demonize the so-called founding fathers (Gates, Jobs, Torvalds) of these technologies, when so many are working to improve upon their legacies or to contribute their gifts towards building sustainable bridges between them? As many of you have pointed out, each system comes with its set of advantages and shortcomings. It is not by insisting on the shortcomings of other systems or by aligning yourself with the virtues of your chosen one that you become anything more than a target for the like-minded who chose a different, but in actuality, a rather similar path.
I apologize in advance if this comes off sounding like a sermon from some morally superior being, as that was not my intention. However, I do feel the need to press the pause button and introduce a somewhat divergent but wider perspective. May it serves this community like a mirror, not to point out its darker tendencies and heap scorn and humiliation upon them, but to help illuminate something of value in yourself, some authentic gift that you have to offer and that you can chose to bring forward. I'd rather see that than watch the Internet devolve into a sewer pit hell-bent with the unconscious intention of breeding pestilence.
I'd take the criticism more seriously if Linux had a ubiquitous supported filesystem that wasn't a complete joke (i.e. something other than ext3).
ReiserFS is dead, XFS is controversial, JFS wasn't supported by Kubuntu's installer, so I had to give up and use ext3. And it is *not* leading-edge filesystem technology.
Ahem, I agree with Gian wholeheartedly, and would like to add that it's quite easy to throw stones at a more than 15 year old file system... Give Apple a small break Linus, they have been trying to push ZFS into the OS for the past few months.
It takes a LOT of testing and conformation for Apple to make a move like that. The powers that be at Apple look at it as a pretty radical departure, and they will eventually get convinced: then they will sit down, strap in, shut up and hold on for the ride. ;-)