I hate to say it, but it looks like any dreams we had of using Ubuntu on ZFS are squarely that: dreams.
In 2019 Canonical was upbeat about their support for contentious file system, making waves with the release of Ubuntu 19.10 which featured an experimental option to install Ubuntu (kernel, system files, and user data) on a ZFS volume. Ubuntu was the first major Linux distro to embrace ZFS, despite the tangle of issues around its licensing.
But since then the enthusiasm has waned.
Last year, Ubuntu developers pushed to remove Zsys from Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer. This is an integral tool Ubuntu created to make it easier to manage and maintain ZFS-based installations. In a bug report they bluntly noted that ‘priority changes’ in the desktop team meant Zsys was no longer something they want to “advertise using”.
Zsys was going to be demoted from the then-upcoming LTS but, for undisclosed reasons, that didn’t happen.
As of writing, Zsys remains available in the Ubuntu archives but its development isn’t looking healthy. Canonical’s contributions fall off a cliff around April 2021, based on GitHub commits, with only a trivial tweak made in April of last year.
Daily builds for the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 release also comes with a brand-new installer built using Flutter to Canonical’s exacting needs. But guess what the new Ubuntu installer does not include? An option to install Ubuntu on the ZFS file system.
With no clear public sign of any effort to advance or improve the Ubuntu ZFS experience, members of the Ubuntu are quite rightly wondering: what is the status of Ubuntu’s ZFS support right now?
Your guess is as good as mine — but things aren’t looking good: Zsys is mothballed, and there’s no easy way to install the latest version of Ubuntu on ZFS.
As such, it looks like Ubuntu’s fleeting infatuation with this infamous file system is squarely over, effort expired. It’s off to join Ubuntu TV, Ubuntu Phone, Unity 8, and other cadavers in Canonical’s graveyard of (sob) disappointments.