On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 09:04:47AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Funny you suggest ext3, because I've been thinking about that too,
> > when it didn't come up as an option during formatting.
> > How do I convert ext2 to ext3?
>
> Google is your friend. :-)
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/ext2toext3.htm Steve Litt has
> lots of good articles in his online mag; it's worth poking around
> the site.
>
> > Are there any drawbacks to doing so?
> The referenced article mentions a couple -- first, if you're
> converting the boot partition, you have to go through the entire
> sequence or it's hosed;
I have no idea what the author is talking about with the mkinitrd
command. It shouldn't be necessary. Perhaps it's a RedHat-ism?
Could someone explain? Other signs of RedHat-isms in the article are
vital utilities like tune2fs being located in the /usr tree--Debian
for one keeps stuff like that in /bin and /sbin, to avoid disaster.
A more relevant concern for some Mac users is that Quik, being a
"smart" bootloader that reads the kernel from the ext2 filesystem by
interpreting the filesystem structure, has issues with ext3,
occasionally. In most cases, things will work fine, because ext3 is
compatible with ext2 software *as long as the filesystem was unmounted
properly*. If the system crashes, Quik won't be able to load the
kernel. The solution is to set aside a dedicated /boot filesystem,
and keep that filesystem ext2-only. Make everything else, even the
root directory, whatever filesystem you like.
If you use BootX, there's no need for /boot to be a separate
filesystem; the kernel will already be stored on a Mac OS HFS
filesystem.
> second, going back to ext2 sounds like something I really wouldn't
> want to deal with. I wonder if it might be safer to reformat &
> reinstall (in either case).
The author of the troubleshooters.com article doesn't seem very
knowledgeable. He writes, "Converting the root directory from Ext2 to
Ext3 isn't difficult, but converting it back from Ext3 to Ext2 is a
treacherous process fraught with problems." There's nothing special
about the root directory, other than that it's always mounted. He
fails to realize it can be mounted in read-only mode. Observe a test
filesystem:
$ /sbin/tune2fs -l test-fs | grep Journal
Journal UUID: <none>
Journal inode: 8
Journal device: 0x0000
$ sudo mount -t ext3 -o ro,loop test-fs /mnt/tmp1
$ touch /mnt/tmp1/foo
touch: creating `/mnt/tmp1/foo': Read-only file system
$ /sbin/tune2fs -O ^has_journal test-fs
tune2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
$ sudo umount /mnt/tmp1
$ /sbin/tune2fs -l test-fs | grep Journal
$ /sbin/e2fsck -f test-fs
e2fsck 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
test-fs: 11/2048 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 274/8192 blocks
The purpose of the e2fsck command is to check for corruptions. I
doubt it's required, but I couldn't say. I can say that the
filesystem will remain as being marked "clean", even after using
tune2fs on the block device. That means the author's e2fsck examples
are meaningless, since the -f option is not specified.
To perform this operation on a running system, without bothering with
Knoppix, bring the system into single user mode (that means 'shutdown
now', not 'init=/bin/sh' at your bootloader's prompt), change the root
directory entry in /etc/fstab to type 'ext2', unmount all non-root
filesystems, remount the root filesystem as read-only ("mount -o
remount,ro /"), then simply run the appropriate tune2fs command.
After a reboot, all should be well.
Not so treacherous after all.
--
- J.P. Larocque, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
- Encrypted e-mail preferred; 0x0c14cdda; http://ely.ath.cx/~piranha/pgp
- Seventh rule of Fight Club, fights will go on as long as they have to...
--
MaX-list is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and...
/ Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \
/ <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
MaX-list info: <http://lowendmac.com/linux/max.shtml>
--> AOL users, remove "mailto:";
Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/max-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
