Rumors about ZFS for Linux Kernel
Three simple photos are causing a stir right now: they show kernel inventor Linus Torvalds talking to the ZFS inventor Jeff Bonwick and thus fire rumors about the filesystem being added to the Linux kernel.
Sun employee Jeff Bonwick, who is viewed as the inventor of the Sun filesystem, ZFS, published images of himself and Linus Torvalds enjoying a beer in his blog under the heading "Casablanca". The photos are accompanied by three short captions. But they have caused a storm by referring to a peanut butter TV ad. The claim "Chocolate on my peanut butter" advertised that both were included in a single bar. The same thing could apply to the combination of the kernal and ZFS. Bonwick concludes by saying: "All I can say for the moment is... stay tuned."
Open Solaris manager Jim Grisanzio provided another clue that the talks concerned ZFS. He titled an entry in his blog "ZFS Pics" thus firing the rumors before backpedaling and claiming that he had only chosen the title because the photos showed Bonwick and because he was a major contributor to ZFS development.
ZFS is a highly scalable 128 bit system that combines the meta filesystem with volume management abilities and is thus capable of creating software raids, for example, with little overhead. The system also offers high performance handling of very large files and data volumes. Simple administration is also a major advantage; thanks to a high level of automation it only needs a few, simply structured commands but still offers administrators a manual option. The community pages at opensolaris.org provide an overview of ZFS.
The explosive nature of this topic has its origins in the connection between ZFS and the kernel. Thus far there has been no cooperation although both are released under Open Source licenses. While the kernel is licensed under the GPLv2, Sun chose the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for ZFS and for its Open Solaris operating system. The two licenses are incompatible. Besides being used in Open Solaris and Solaris 10, ZFS has been ported to FreeBSD and Mac OSX thus far. A project that supports use of the filesystem on Linux is ZFS on FUSE.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.