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.

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.

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.

Fedora 16 is more than two months away from final, stable release, but pre-Alpha installation ISO images have been floating around. News from the Fedora camp have already indicated that btrfs will be the default file system on Fedora 16, joining the ranks of MeeGo, the first (Linux) distribution to use btrfs as the default file system.

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.

This guide shows how to work with the btrfs file system on Linux. It covers creating and mounting btrfs file systems, resizing btrfs file systems online, adding and removing devices, changing RAID levels, creating subvolumes and snapshots, using compression and other things.

Earlier this week we reported that Ubuntu has plans for the Btrfs file-system in 2011 and 2012 by providing support for installing Ubuntu Linux to a Btrfs file-system. This information was based upon documents coming out of the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Brussels, but it turns out that Canonical may actually deploy Btrfs this year.

Btrfs was supposed to have been the default file system for Fedora 16, but for technical reasons, that did not happen. Word on the street says it will be, in Fedora 17. But you do not have to wait for Fedora 17 to get your system humming on btrfs because you can do it right now.

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.