Xiafs

Xiafs was a file system for the Linux kernel which was conceived and developed by Frank Xia and was based on the MINIX file system. Today it is obsolete and not in use, except possibly in some historic installations.

History

Linux originally used the MINIX file system, but it had a number of limitations. For example, the length of filenames was limited to 14 characters and the partition size was limited to 64 MB. To replace the MINIX file system, the extended file system (or ext) was developed. However, ext retained some problems such as poor performance and the lack of some date stamps. Two contenders for replacing ext were quickly developed: ext2 and Xiafs. The two file systems were included in the standard kernel in December 1993 (Linux 0.99.15). ext2 and Xiafs had the same goal: to offer good performance, reasonable limitations, and fixing the flaws of ext. Initially, Xiafs was more stable than Ext2 but, being a fairly minimalistic modification of the Minix file system, it was not very well suited for future extension.