#1036400 partman-jfs: JFS is on its way out, please remove from the installer

Package:
partman-jfs
Source:
partman-jfs
Submitter:
Adam Borowski
Date:
2026-03-15 16:35:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1036400#5
Date:
2023-05-20 13:07:07 UTC
From:
To:
Hi!
The JFS filesystem is deprecated in the kernel: on life support since 2009
and with talks of removal altogether.  Thus, we really shouldn't offer to
format new setups with it.  There are people who kind-of remember JFS being
the fastest back in the day, and it's irresponsible to set them for failed
upgrades past Bookworm.

Thus: please remove JFS from the installer.


Meow!
#1036400#10
Date:
2023-05-21 05:35:36 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> (2023-05-20):

It doesn't seem reasonable to do that weeks away from the release, without
any kind of heads-up. That can be done during the Trixie release cycle,
e.g. in Alpha 1.

Feel free to ping this bug report a few weeks/months into the next release
cycle, so that we have a chance to catch our breath, and to deal with
incoming installation reports.


Cheers,
#1036400#15
Date:
2023-06-30 14:56:37 UTC
From:
To:
Aye, sorry for having distracted you during the most busy time.  I filed the
bug when I learned about plans of giving JFS the axe.

So... it might be a better time now.


Meow!
#1036400#20
Date:
2023-06-30 15:33:56 UTC
From:
To:
Agreed, we'll pick this up shortly.
#1036400#25
Date:
2023-06-30 17:46:30 UTC
From:
To:
Hello!

Not sure where you got this information from, but JFS [1] unlike ReiserFS [2]
is not marked as deprecated in the kernel. There was a single mail by Christoph
Hellwig suggesting to deprecate JFS in the near future but so far nothing
has been decided yet.

Adrian
#1036400#30
Date:
2026-03-15 14:14:07 UTC
From:
To:
And we didn't. :-(

I've just excluded partman-jfs from image builds now.

kibi: I don't see any config to use partman-jfs in d-i or not, which
matches my expectations that it's just pulled in if it's viaible in
the debian-installer section of the archive. Shall we request removal
via ftpmaster?
#1036400#35
Date:
2026-03-15 15:15:12 UTC
From:
To:
Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> (2026-03-15):

ACK, thanks.

LGTM, thanks for picking up the topic and for the heads-up.


Cheers,
#1036400#40
Date:
2026-03-15 16:33:40 UTC
From:
To:
Alternative option discussed with Steve in #debian-cd:

Subject: [PATCH] Disable manual formatting with JFS

Prevent manually formatting new filesystems with JFS because of reported
kernel panic on some setups (see bug #1026259) and maintenance status in
kernel, in order to make it harder for new people to make the mistake of
using it.

Mounting an existing JFS filesystem or formatting with JFS in custom
recipes is still supported in order to not hurt people still using it.
---
  valid_filesystems/jfs | 1 -
  1 file changed, 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/valid_filesystems/jfs b/valid_filesystems/jfs
index 8116413..576de76 100755
--- a/valid_filesystems/jfs
+++ b/valid_filesystems/jfs
@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ property=$3

  case $property in
      formatable)
-	echo jfs
  	;;
      existing)
  	[ -f $id/detected_filesystem ] || exit 0