#1108448 partman-btrfs: support for other checksum algorithms than crc32c

Package:
src:partman-btrfs
Source:
src:partman-btrfs
Submitter:
Kai Herlemann
Date:
2025-06-29 07:39:06 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1108448#5
Date:
2025-06-29 00:32:20 UTC
From:
To:
Source: partman-btrfs
Version: 63
Severity: wishlist
Tags: d-i
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org, debian@linux.kai-herlemann.de, debian-boot@lists.debian.org
User: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org
Usertags: amd64
User: debian-boot@lists.debian.org
Usertags: amd64

Hi,

Other checksum algorithms besides crc32c should be supported, especially xxhash. xxhash has better collision resistance, and according to some sources, it also has better performance (depending on the CPU model).

Currently, it's not possible to select a different checksum algorithm in the installer. Even if you pre-create the filesystem before installation, this doesn't work – it seems the Debian Installer kernel doesn't support it. When I tried this, after attempting to mount the filesystem, I found the following error message in dmesg: "BTRFS error (device nvme0n1p2): error allocating xxhash64 for checksum"

Regards,
Kai
#1108448#10
Date:
2025-06-29 06:55:24 UTC
From:
To:
AFAICS xxhash checksum requires the xxhash_generic kernel module which
is currently not included in any kernel udeb. Only crc32_generic and
crc32c_generic modules are included in kernel-image udeb.