Can we pay-attention, to this thread (now) being about considering the
feature-flags 'used by default' in mke2fs.conf, in consideration to
18.04 --  [linked bug for e2fsprogs].

We know massive 'compatibility'/portability benefit of formatting the
same as previous-LTS by default, as the required e2fsprogs was only
introduced 16.10, and the needed kernel was only in 16.04 (and 14.04
-HWE-kernel-update.).  NB: Looks like there is a similar issue with
GRUB2 which affects dual-booters, grub2 2.02beta3 may be needed to
support 64bit FS.  If so, again Xenial isn't compatible to detect an
18.04 in multi-boot-menu.

I'd like tytso to comment on the downsides of formatting without
64bit,metadata_csum, more specifically.  From what I can (see) this only
loses a little extra checksumming-integrity (against bad disks, which
we've never needed before??), and the 64bit feature appears only to be
needed to strengthen these checksums or support >16TB disks (bearing in
mind auto_64bit_support can still be used).  NB: Is this correct, -OR-
is there likely going to be future annoyances with 'other' ext4
features-to-come which will ALSO expect 64bit formatting?.

My suggestion is, this hasn't been sorted-out enough in the ubuntu-
world, and 64bit,metadata_csum should be disabled-by-default for 18.04
and backporting grub/e2fsprogs/etc where relevant should happen as well
[see other thread, possibly another may be created for grub2].

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1601997

Title:
  Ubuntu 16.10+ installer uses ext4 feature 'metadata_csum' which is
  incompatible with older (LTS) e2fsprogs

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