best file system

[HappyAsHellas]

At present I am running Ubuntu 14.04lts, dual booting with windows 10. I have now decided to wipe out windows, upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu and re-partition the hard drive. I seem to remember reading that the native file system will run faster as opposed to the dual system at present. Performance wise, which is the best system to use?
Oh, and is it possible to do this via an upgrade, or am I better just wiping everything out and starting from scratch again.

[TheFu]

14.04.1 is the recommended version for people who need more than a year of support.
Review this page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases carefully before making any decision. Note the end of support dates.

An important consideration is that 16.04 will be an LTS. If you can wait, there is a direct upgrade path from 14.04.x to 16.04.
The upgrade to 15.10 will be
14.04 --> 14.10 --> 15.04 --> 15.10 --> 16.04

Ok.... the file system question .... short answer is use ext4.

There are many considerations when selecting a file system. Speed cannot be the only consideration, because there are always trade-offs. If you have 20+TB of data in a single file system, then you'll want to look at XFS. If you want built-in snapshots, look at BTRFS and ZFS. ZFS performance can be impressive, but only if the selected HW and storage design follow the sometimes-heavy requirements. ZFS can have bad performance. BTRFS is very impressive, with some caveats. They may or may not be important to you.

Not every Linux file system can be used as the boot partition. That could be important too.
Planning to use LVM? Yes? No?

What do you mean by "dual system?" The easiest thing you could do to get better help is to run a small script and post the URL it provides with system info.
Get it here: http://blog.jdpfu.com/files/quick-sys-info.sh
save it to /tmp/ and
run it with bash /tmp/quick-sys-info.sh

It will ask for a sudo password, in your situation, the data we need requires it. Take a look at the script. Lookup any commands for clarification.

[HappyAsHellas]

I ran the script, do I need to copy and paste it here or did it upload somewhere?

[TheFu]

There should have been a URL posted at the end of the run. Just post that.
Or you can copy/paste the output here - please, please, please, use code-tags so everything lines up. Otherwise I won't look at it

[HappyAsHellas]

INFO === Running: lsb_release -a

LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch:core-4.1-amd64:core-4.1-noarch:security-4.0-amd64:security-4.0-noarch:security-4.1-amd64:security-4.1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty


INFO === Running: grep name /proc/cpuinfo

model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU B970 @ 2.30GHz
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU B970 @ 2.30GHz


INFO === Running: lscpu

Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 42
Stepping: 7
CPU MHz: 800.000
BogoMIPS: 4589.70
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 256K
L3 cache: 2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1


INFO === Running: free -m

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 7890 1616 6274 281 112 832
-/+ buffers/cache: 671 7219
Swap: 0 0 0


INFO === Running: sudo lshw -sanitize -C video -C network

[sudo] password for george:
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 09
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:41 memory:f7800000-f7bfffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 10
serial: [REMOVED]
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192se driverversion=3.13.0-68-generic firmware=N/A ip=[REMOVED] latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:18 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:f7d00000-f7d03fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: JMC250 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vendor: JMicron Technology Corp.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 05
serial: [REMOVED]
size: 10Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msix msi bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=jme driverversion=1.0.8 duplex=half latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
resources: irq:44 memory:f7c20000-f7c23fff ioport:d100(size=128) ioport:d000(size=256) memory:f7c10000-f7c1ffff memory:f7c00000-f7c0ffff


INFO === Running: route

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 wlan0
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 9 0 0 wlan0


INFO === Running: ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:f5:c9:47:b6
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:44

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:820 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:820 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:89869 (89.8 KB) TX bytes:89869 (89.8 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr e0:b9:a5:dc:dc:e3
inet addr:192.168.0.8 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::e2b9:a5ff:fedc:dce3/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3392 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3767 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1754761 (1.7 MB) TX bytes:774855 (774.8 KB)



INFO === Running: iwconfig

eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"virginmedia8696733"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 74:44:01:69:73:9D
Bit Rate=72.2 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-38 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:127 Missed beacon:0



INFO === Running: rfkill list

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no


INFO === Running: lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 100M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 203.2G 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 131.9G 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 66.1G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 7.9G 0 part
└─sda7 8:7 0 56.7G 0 part /


INFO === Running: df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7 56G 36G 18G 68% /
none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 3.9G 4.0K 3.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs 790M 1.3M 788M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 3.9G 372K 3.9G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 48K 100M 1% /run/user
/home/george/.Private 56G 36G 18G 68% /home/george


INFO === Running: sudo parted -l

Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54755 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB primary ntfs boot
2 106MB 218GB 218GB primary ntfs
3 218GB 360GB 142GB primary ntfs
4 360GB 500GB 140GB extended lba
5 360GB 431GB 70.9GB logical ntfs
7 431GB 492GB 60.9GB logical ext4
6 492GB 500GB 8488MB logical



=======================
Log file: /tmp/sys-info-2589
Data uploaded to *******.us here:

http://*******.us/WCQb
george@george-W240HU-W250HUQ:~$

[TheFu]

Ok. Having an encrypted home directory is a probably what is slowing down your current setup. Encrypted HOME directories use a slower encryption technique than whole-drive dm-crypt encryption. There are reasons for both methods, it is just that dm-crypt has very little overhead.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1404_encryption&num=1 has tests comparing different encryption types.

BTW, there isn't any swap partition. If this is a desktop, 4G of swap is recommended provided you don't intend to hibernate. Hibernation requires a swap larger than the amount of RAM.

The Pentium B970 CPU does not have AES encryption extensions, so all disk encryption using AES will be slower. Selecting another cypher would be recommended.

I always encrypt my portable devices and use LVM on physical machines (including laptops). With all encryption, having excellent backups is mandatory, as you know.

Anyway, I hope this information helps you decide. We can provide partitioning suggestions.

For whole drive encryption, using LVM makes that easier. /boot will need to be outside the LVM and encryption, but /, /home, and swap can be inside. A simplistic overview of LVM is that it allows flexible partition management, without having to reboot. For some file systems, resizing an LV (basically equiv to a partition) can be performed while the system is running. Pretty cool, right?

[HappyAsHellas]

Thank you for your help, greatly appreciated.