Re: Btrfs best practices: defrag?

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 08:38:41PM +, piorunz wrote:
> My current fstab mounting:
> 
> noatime,space_cache=v2,compress-force=zstd:3 0 2
> 
> Will autodefrag break COW files? Like I copy paste a file and I save
> space, but defrag with destroy this space saving?

Yes, I believe so. That is, if you have files sharing extents (like
if you de-duplicated them or did a "cp --reflink=always") and defrag
touches those files, it will undo the extent sharing.

> Also, will autodefrag compress files automatically, as mount option
> enforces (compress-force=zstd:3)?

Yes.

> Any suggestions welcome.

If you're not relying on extent sharing then I'd think that
automated defrag is okay.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: Btrfs best practices: defrag?

[piorunz]

I'd like to add question to this topic.

Is it safe & recommended to run autodefrag mount option in fstab?
I am considering two machines here, normal desktop which has Btrfs as
/home, and server with VM and other databases also btrfs /home. Both
Btrfs RAID10 types. Both are heavily fragmented. I never defragmented
them, in fact.

Running manual defrag on server machine, like:
sudo btrfs filesystem defrag -v -t4G -r /home
takes ages and can cause 120 second timeout kernel error in dmesg due to
service timeouts. I prefer to autodefrag gradually, overtime, mount
option seems to be good for that.

My current fstab mounting:

noatime,space_cache=v2,compress-force=zstd:3 0 2

Will autodefrag break COW files? Like I copy paste a file and I save
space, but defrag with destroy this space saving?
Also, will autodefrag compress files automatically, as mount option
enforces (compress-force=zstd:3)?

Any suggestions welcome.

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Re: Does the vfat partition need defrag under Gnu/Linux ?

[Paul E Condon]

On 2009-05-27_11:41:09, Hashimoto wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have an external disk actually using one vfat partition type, so I'm
> wondering if it's necessary to defrag it since I used to save and remove
> a lot and large files. 
> 
> Any suggestions ?

It sounds like the external disk is in active write/read use on a
Debian/GNU/Linux system. For me, this is a ligit. question on this
list. 

The disk has a vfat fs, so it probably could benefit from a defrag,
but let be suggest a solution that I have found quite workable:

IF, and this is a BIG IF, you never intend to unplug the disk from
your Debian box and plug it into a Microsoft Windows box, then you
should consider converting to ext3 or ext4 file system. It is easy
but the exact steps depend on details of how your Debian system is
configured. 

And, if someone else might 'borrow' your external drive for
'temporary' use on a Windows box, they might mistakenly think that it
is broken and try reformatting it, just to be 'helpful'. If, so, your
data will be lost. Consider your work environment carefully.

If you are running a recent Lenny installation, with Gnome as installed
by tasksel, then you can follow these steps:

1) Start with the disk plugged in and mounted so that there is a
visible icon for it on the desktop.

2) Copy ALL the files that you want to keep onto some other storage
medium, and check that they all got there correctly.

3) Run: cat /etc/mtab This will tell you the device name that the
system assigned to your disk when you plugged it in. It should be
something like /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdb1 Remember this.

4) Right-click on the disk icon and select unmount volume. The icon
should disappear. If it doesn't, there will be an error message 
about the disk being in use by a running program. Figure out what
program that is. Shut it down and try again to unmount volume. When
disk icon is gone, DO NOT unplug the disk! Instead do

5) Write a new file system onto the device name that you remember from
step (3), above. I give here the command for ext3:

mke2fs -j -L 

Note: mke2fs has a lot of options, but -j and -L are enough in my
experience. Whatever you give as the volume label string will be used
as the mount point within /media/ . I use WDP-1, WDP-2, etc. for my
Western Digital Passport drives.

(If you got the dev-name wrong in step (3), you may be saved from
wiping some other disk of its data by virtue of that other disk still
being mounted, and the mke2fs program isn't supposed to touch mounted
volumes. Also, you can verify the device name because it is the one
that disappears from mtab, when you unmount your external drive.)

6) When mke2fs finishes (wait, be sure it is finished), unplug the newly
formatted disk, wait a few seconds and plug it in again. It should mount
automatically with it's new volume name. Copy the data back onto it
from wherever you saved it in step (2)

HTH
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pecon...@mesanetworks.net


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Re: Does the vfat partition need defrag under Gnu/Linux ?

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Muzer wrote:
> Yeah. It's annoying that Linux can't defrag FAT natively (or most
> filesystems for that matter, the notable exception being ext4).

I've been using linux fs on workstations and servers for many years and
never missed the 'defrag' feature. From what I recall from the old
windows times, defrag on windows takes about longer than a fresh restore
from backup on linux and the big advantage of the linux filesystems is,
that for most situations you won't have to defrag within a decade or so.
If it really was an important feature to have, someone would have worked
on that before. ;-)

YMMV, but I guess my life is better spent with other things than
defragmenting my disks.

Just my 2ct.

Johannes



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Re: Does the vfat partition need defrag under Gnu/Linux ?

[Muzer]

Todd A. Jacobs wrote:

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:41:09AM -0300, Hashimoto wrote:

  

I have an external disk actually using one vfat partition type, so I'm
wondering if it's necessary to defrag it since I used to save and
remove a lot and large files. 



This isn't really a Linux question; it's a filesystem question. FAT
partitions don't handle fragmentation well, so if you're seeing
performance problems you should either defrag it from Windows (either
natively or from inside VirtualBox) or back up the disk and restore it
to a clean partition.

  
Yeah. It's annoying that Linux can't defrag FAT natively (or most 
filesystems for that matter, the notable exception being ext4).


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Re: Does the vfat partition need defrag under Gnu/Linux ?

[Todd A. Jacobs]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:41:09AM -0300, Hashimoto wrote:

> I have an external disk actually using one vfat partition type, so I'm
> wondering if it's necessary to defrag it since I used to save and
> remove a lot and large files. 

This isn't really a Linux question; it's a filesystem question. FAT
partitions don't handle fragmentation well, so if you're seeing
performance problems you should either defrag it from Windows (either
natively or from inside VirtualBox) or back up the disk and restore it
to a clean partition.

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Does the vfat partition need defrag under Gnu/Linux ?

[Hashimoto]

Hello,

I have an external disk actually using one vfat partition type, so I'm
wondering if it's necessary to defrag it since I used to save and remove
a lot and large files. 

Any suggestions ?

Thanks,

--
Rodrigo Hashimoto

Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my (FAT) drive?

[Clive Menzies]

On (24/08/05 10:24), Hendrik Boom wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 05:49:58PM +0200, Tim Ruehsen wrote:
> > 
> > > You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> > > operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> > > control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
> > 
> > Many people say so, but it is not true.
> > 
> > Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in comparison 
> > with 
> > (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it 
> > is 
> > a feature of the filesystem.
> 
> While we're on the subject, how *do* you defragment an MSDOS file system
> when you're running Linux.  I'm faced with a MSDOS-formatted USB drive
> that is used to ferry data to a plugin for a Nintendo DS that
> requires each file to be contiguous.

There might be something in:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ apt-cache show mtools
Package: mtools
Priority: standard
Section: otherosfs
Installed-Size: 480
Maintainer: Luis Bustamante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Architecture: powerpc
Version: 3.9.9-2.1
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-4)
Suggests: floppyd
Filename: pool/main/m/mtools/mtools_3.9.9-2.1_powerpc.deb
Size: 203454
MD5sum: 1dbd6480ec9bb4b72f8ee904404d1cf1
Description: Tools for manipulating MSDOS files
 Mtools is a collection of utilities to access MS-DOS disks from Unix
  without mounting them. It supports Win'95 style long file names, OS/2
   Xdf disks, ZIP/JAZ disks and 2m disks (store up to 1992kB on a high
density 3 1/2 disk).
 .
  Also included in this package are commands to eject and manipulate
   the write/password protection control of Zip disks.
   Tag: admin::filesystem, interface::commandline, role::sw:utility

Regards

Clive

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RE: Newbie: How do I defrag my (FAT) drive?

[Kretzer, Jason R (Big Sandy)]

I would boot a Windows/DOS boot disk and run defrag from there.  I would
not try it from linux.  Just my first thoughts.

-Jason

-Original Message-
From: Hendrik Boom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 10:25 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my (FAT) drive?

On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 05:49:58PM +0200, Tim Ruehsen wrote:
> 
> > You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> > operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> > control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
> 
> Many people say so, but it is not true.
> 
> Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in
comparison with 
> (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux'
it is 
> a feature of the filesystem.

While we're on the subject, how *do* you defragment an MSDOS file system
when you're running Linux.  I'm faced with a MSDOS-formatted USB drive
that is used to ferry data to a plugin for a Nintendo DS that
requires each file to be contiguous.

-- hendrik


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my (FAT) drive?

[Hendrik Boom]

On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 05:49:58PM +0200, Tim Ruehsen wrote:
> 
> > You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> > operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> > control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
> 
> Many people say so, but it is not true.
> 
> Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in comparison with 
> (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it is 
> a feature of the filesystem.

While we're on the subject, how *do* you defragment an MSDOS file system
when you're running Linux.  I'm faced with a MSDOS-formatted USB drive
that is used to ferry data to a plugin for a Nintendo DS that
requires each file to be contiguous.

-- hendrik


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Duncan Anderson]

Tim Ruehsen wrote:




Jiann-Ming Su posted a link, which talks about two possibilities to defragment 
your discs: either use defrag (but make a backup before!) or just make a 
backup, clean your partitions and restore the backup.


I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a day, 
making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now, after a 
year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became slower and 
slower).
 

This applies to all UNIX-type systems, as far as I know. We used to have 
to do it on old SCO and Interactive UNIX boxes, as well as Solaris. The 
procedure is very straightforward, but make sure you verify your backup 
properly...:-)


cheers
Duncan


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Joseph Haig]

--- Tim Ruehsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> > You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> > operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> > control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
> 
> Many people say so, but it is not true.
> 
> Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in
> comparison with 
> (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of
> 'Linux' it is 
> a feature of the filesystem.
> 

You are right on both counts - any filesystem has some degree of
fragmentation and the feature is specific to the filesystem - but this
is more information than your average newbie really wants, so I stand
by what I said.  Any filesystem used by Linux will keep the
fragmentation under control, albeit without eradicating it completely. 
Yes, you could probably install Linux on a FAT filesystem but would you
really want to?  Likewise, I guess you could install Windows on ext3
(if you were particularly perverse and persistent) but I wouldn't like
to see the result.

I look after (not on my own ;-) ) around 200 servers all running Linux,
some of which have been in constant use for hundreds of days.  It is
simply impractical to go round defragging the disks.





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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[David E. Fox]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:38:29 +0200
Michal Simovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> don't know, if there is a defrag utility for linux, but first of all you 
> should realize that after few months there is probably no need to 

Under most circumstances yes. I've been running linux for years, but
managed to try defrag out of curiosity more than anything else once on
an ext2 system many years ago. Didn't seem to accomplish much - at
least I couldnt't "feel" that things were that improved.

> defragment. linux filesystems like ext3 get fragmented a lot lot less 
> than FAT32 or NTFS as far as i know.

Yes, but it depends how it is used, how much free space is available,
abnd the type of filesystem used. Under DOS/Windows of course, you
basically only have one choice of filesystem. And as the prior poster
and the article by Lew Pitcher suggests, performance of fragmented vs.
unfragmented really have separate sets of issues in DOS (or other single
user/ single tasking systtems) vs. multiuser systems like Linux.

Some fileystems are extremely resistant to fragmentation (e.g.,
ReiserFS) while others are more prone to it (JFS, for instance). In
ReiserFS there is reordering of blocks over time so that fragmentation
goes away as far as I know. I've heard that it is impossible, but I'm
skeptical about that. Needless to say, ReiserFS is very good :).

> besides there is certainly a method that reveals how much disk space is 

There used to be, but I haven't looked for it in quite sometime, and so
I am not sure if it even exists anymore. It was called 'frag', and
it could be run against a particular file or set of files, or even the
whole filesystem for an aggregate figure.  At the time I tried it,
several years ago, I was running a rather modest setup (compared to
now) - in faxt my entire / (ext2) was on a 350 meg drive :). It was
hard to keep that thing less than 5% empty at times. Out of curiosity,
I did a 'frag' against the whole filesytem. I encountered a large
number of files with over 40% fragmented blocks, although in overall the
file fragmentation percentage was fairly minimal.



> miso


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[David E. Fox]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 22:19:55 -0400
kamaraju kusumanchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> post your df -h output? I have a feeling that defragmenting an ext2/ext3 
> partition does not increase performance if the partitions are not 
> heavily filled up. But I could be wrong.

I'm skeptical that it would offer any improvement. If you look at what
the init process does (besides loading the kernel, of course),
basically the system spawns a number of deamons/programs/etc in rapid
succerssion. One would think that in terms of head movement there would
be more time spent finding the things to load than any fragmentation
there might be in the things themselves.

> raju


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[kamaraju kusumanchi]

Tim Ruehsen wrote:


You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
   



Many people say so, but it is not true.

Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in comparison with 
(V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it is 
a feature of the filesystem.


Jiann-Ming Su posted a link, which talks about two possibilities to defragment 
your discs: either use defrag (but make a backup before!) or just make a 
backup, clean your partitions and restore the backup.


I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a day, 
making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now, after a 
year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became slower and 
slower).


Regards, Tim
 


Tim,
  I am a bit startled about the increase in 'boot time performance' 
once you defragmented. Could it be that you have your drives filled up 
to a very high value (say more than 95%)? If you dont mind could you 
post your df -h output? I have a feeling that defragmenting an ext2/ext3 
partition does not increase performance if the partitions are not 
heavily filled up. But I could be wrong.


raju


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Cornell University
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Glenn English]

On Tue, 2005-08-23 at 14:11 -0500, Gary Smithe wrote:

> Don't hang me (or flame me) for this, but some Microsoft based speculation.

No prob. All this applies to CP/M and the Apple ][ OS, too.

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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Bryan Donlan]

On 8/23/05, Paul Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tuesday 23 August 2005 08:49 am, Tim Ruehsen wrote:
> 
> > I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a
> > day, making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now,
> > after a year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became
> > slower and slower).
> 
> That may have more to do with exhausting what you can do performance-wise to a
> serial init process like sysvinit.  I can't wait until someone packages
> init-ng already...

It's already in experimental.

Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Paul Johnson]

On Tuesday 23 August 2005 08:49 am, Tim Ruehsen wrote:

> I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a
> day, making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now,
> after a year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became
> slower and slower).

That may have more to do with exhausting what you can do performance-wise to a 
serial init process like sysvinit.  I can't wait until someone packages 
init-ng already...


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Paul Johnson]

On Tuesday 23 August 2005 08:24 am, Ian wrote:
> I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should
> probably defragment my partitions. How can I do this?

You can't, and you shouldn't need to.


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Gary Smithe]

On 8/23/05, Tim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In gmane.linux.debian.user Ian wrote:
> 
> > I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should probably
> > defragment my partitions. How can I do this?
> >
> 
> Here's the best explanation of the topic that I have seen so far.
> Credit goes to Lew Pitcher:
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Tim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Linux User #246684
> 

Wow. That was a very thorough post.  Kudos to Lew.

Don't hang me (or flame me) for this, but some Microsoft based speculation.

Assuming Multi-tasking servers, no matter the OS, are always busy and
drive read heads always seeking, are utilities like Executive
Software's Diskeeper Utility (for Windows servers) just a scam?  I
have some customers who had software vendors tout this stuff to be
nearly as important as anti-virus software.

GS

Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Dave Ewart]

> (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it is
> a feature of the filesystem.

With this in mind, selecting a suitable partitioning scheme can minimize
any fragmentation issues.

For example, areas of the filesystem with a large turnover of files can
cause serious fragmentation.  Therefore, it is a good idea to keep these
areas as separate partitions, e.g. /var/mail for a mail server or
/var/spool/news for a news server etc.

Dave.
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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Tim]

In gmane.linux.debian.user Ian wrote:

> I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should probably
> defragment my partitions. How can I do this?
> 

Here's the best explanation of the topic that I have seen so far.
Credit goes to Lew Pitcher:



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Linux User #246684


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Joe Smith]

- Original Message - 
From: "Kent West" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Newsgroups: gmane.linux.debian.user
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?




Defragging on a Linux system is generally unnecessary; therefore there's
no utility for the task.



Wrong. (About no utility)


From http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Partition.html#FRAGMENTATION:
None of these habits should be carried over to Linux and ext2. Linux native 
file systems do not need defragmentation under normal use and this includes 
any condition with at least 5% of free space on a disk. There is a 
defragmentation tool for ext2 called defrag, but users are cautioned against 
casual use. A power outage during such an operation can trash your file 
system. Since you need to back up your data anyway, simply writing back from 
your copy will do the job. 




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RE: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Michal Simovic]

don't know, if there is a defrag utility for linux, but first of all you 
should realize that after few months there is probably no need to 
defragment. linux filesystems like ext3 get fragmented a lot lot less 
than FAT32 or NTFS as far as i know.


besides there is certainly a method that reveals how much disk space is 
continuous/fragmented. some more advanved linux user will tell you for 
sure..

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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[garaged]

On 8/23/05, Tim Ruehsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> > operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> > control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.
> 
> Many people say so, but it is not true.
> 
> Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in comparison with
> (V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it is
> a feature of the filesystem.
> 
> Jiann-Ming Su posted a link, which talks about two possibilities to defragment
> your discs: either use defrag (but make a backup before!) or just make a
> backup, clean your partitions and restore the backup.
> 
> I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a day,
> making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now, after a
> year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became slower and
> slower).

Does it affect the every day operation of the filesystem, apart from booting ??

I have notice tha know fact that less than 5-10% of free space on HD
affects system operation, but simply deleting unneded files up to more
than 10% of free space makes my system go to normal operation.

I have never done a backup, but I dont usually keep a computer for
more than 2-3 years. A hard disk failure, or related thing keep me
from keeping instalations for more than that.

Max

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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Philippe Grenard]

Le Mardi 23 Août 2005 17:24, Ian a écrit :
> I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should
> probably defragment my partitions. How can I do this?
well, with linux, i believe you just don't have to defrag your partitions...
so don't worry about that anymore ;-)

Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Tim Ruehsen]

> You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
> operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
> control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.

Many people say so, but it is not true.

Ext2 takes some precautions to reduce fragmentation a bit (in comparison with 
(V)FAT), but ext2 can't prevent it. And it is not a feature of 'Linux' it is 
a feature of the filesystem.

Jiann-Ming Su posted a link, which talks about two possibilities to defragment 
your discs: either use defrag (but make a backup before!) or just make a 
backup, clean your partitions and restore the backup.

I did the last thing (after using my system for ~2 years for ~10 hours a day, 
making updates every day) and my system booted about 30% faster. Now, after a 
year or so, it seems to be time to do it again (booting became slower and 
slower).

Regards, Tim


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RE: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Kretzer, Jason R (Big Sandy)]

Not a problem.
 
If you don't ASK, you don't GET.
 
-Jason



From: Ian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 11:42 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?


Thanks for the help, and sorry for my newbish lack of knowledge.

-- 
"If practice makes perfect, and no one is perfect, then why practice?" 

Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Ian]

Thanks for the help, and sorry for my newbish lack of knowledge.-- "If practice makes perfect, and no one is perfect, then why practice?"

RE: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Florian Dorpmueller]

I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should 
probably

defragment my partitions. How can I do this?



Normally this is not necessary. But if you want you can use defrag.

Flori



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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Joseph Haig]

--- Ian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should
> probably 
> defragment my partitions. How can I do this?
> 

You don't need to.  You only need to defragment your disk if your
operating system is incapable of keeping the fragmentation under
control, and Linux does not suffer from this problem.



___ 
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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Kent West]

Kretzer, Jason R (Big Sandy) wrote:

>Unless I am mistaken, there is no "defrag" utility for linux.  Anyone
>have anything to add?
>  
>
Defragging on a Linux system is generally unnecessary; therefore there's
no utility for the task.

-- 
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Technology Support
/A/bilene /C/hristian /U/niversity


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Re: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Jiann-Ming Su]

On 8/23/05, Ian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should probably
> defragment my partitions. How can I do this?
> 

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Partition.html#FRAGMENTATION

-- 
Jiann-Ming Su
"I have to decide between two equally frightening options. 
 If I wanted to do that, I'd vote." --Duckman

RE: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Kretzer, Jason R (Big Sandy)]

Unless I am mistaken, there is no "defrag" utility for linux.  Anyone
have anything to add?
 
-Jason
 
 
 



From: Ian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 11:25 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?


I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should
probably defragment my partitions. How can I do this?

-- 
"If practice makes perfect, and no one is perfect, then why practice?" 

Newbie: How do I defrag my drive?

[Ian]

I realized, I've had Sarge installed for a few months, and I should probably defragment my partitions. How can I do this?-- "If practice makes perfect, and no one is perfect, then why practice?"

Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[steef]

Ian Langnickel wrote:


Hi Steef,

as my mailrules fail to automatically move your messages into my
mailinglist folder and I always have to move them manually I would like
to ask you to correct some setting in your mailreader software.

The "To: " header is broken with your current configuration, I think it
is your addressbook entry:

--- snip ---
Illegal-Object: Syntax error in To: address found on mailgate.god.de:
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:gebruikerslijst 
^-missing end of address

--- snipp ---

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Ian has some trouble with my adressing to the mailing list. see above. 
somebody else the same trouble?


please inform me. i cannot find something unusual, but would like to 
help him (and possibly others) out. yet i changed something in the 
adress-entries. instead of *debian:gebruikerslijst <>* 
it is now *gebruikerslijst  <..>*.


thanx,



steef


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Re: [Fwd: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System]

[Steve Lamb]

steef wrote:

No message from ya so I presume you're wondering why he would be saying
there's a problem?

> Illegal-Object: Syntax error in To: address found on mailgate.god.de:
> To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:gebruikerslijst
> 

He's partially correct and partially wrong.  His error message is pointing
to the address outside the <> symbols as the problem.  His filters really
should be looking inside the <> symbols or, better still, the List-Id header.
   On the other hand the portion prior to the <> symbols should be in quotes
to encapsulate the : symbol which, IIRC, is not valid in that context
according to RFC822 or RFC2822.

-- 
 Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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[Fwd: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System]

[steef]

 Original Message 
Subject:Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System
Date:   Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:24:52 +0200
From:   Ian Langnickel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
References: 	<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>




Hi Steef,

as my mailrules fail to automatically move your messages into my
mailinglist folder and I always have to move them manually I would like
to ask you to correct some setting in your mailreader software.

The "To: " header is broken with your current configuration, I think it
is your addressbook entry:

--- snip ---
Illegal-Object: Syntax error in To: address found on mailgate.god.de:
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:gebruikerslijst 
^-missing end of address

--- snipp ---

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,
Ian



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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[steef]

Steve Lamb wrote:


steef wrote:
 


Vincent Lönngren wrote:
   



 


Actually, it refuses to defrag ext3 filesystems, because they have
"unsupported features".
 



 


why would you do that for heaven's sake?
   



   Vincent was replying to an old thread.  Already discussed at length.
Check archives.  :)

 


ok, thanks!

steef


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Steve Lamb]

steef wrote:
> Vincent Lönngren wrote:

>> Actually, it refuses to defrag ext3 filesystems, because they have
>> "unsupported features".

> why would you do that for heaven's sake?

Vincent was replying to an old thread.  Already discussed at length.
Check archives.  :)

-- 
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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
---+-



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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[steef]

Vincent Lönngren wrote:


Actually, it refuses to defrag ext3 filesystems, because they have
"unsupported features".
 


why would you do that for heaven's sake?

regards,

steef


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Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2005 at 10:04:16AM +0200, Vincent Lönngren wrote:
> Actually, it refuses to defrag ext3 filesystems, because they have
> "unsupported features".

There is no need to defrag modern *nix filesystems.  Why even bother?

-Roberto
-- 
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http://familiasanchez.net/~sanchezr


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Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Vincent Lönngren]

Actually, it refuses to defrag ext3 filesystems, because they have
"unsupported features".
-- 
Vincent Lönngren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Todd A. Jacobs]

On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 11:24:47PM +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:

> Package: defrag [..] Description: ext2, minix and xiafs filesystem
> defragmenter  Wouldn't risk it on ext3. If it shouldn't be used on

It will work fine on a cleanly-unmounted ext3 partition (e.g. with no
peding log replays). Ext3 uses identical filesystem structures to ext2,
which is both its blessing and its curse. :)

-- 
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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Chris Bannister]

On Sun, May 22, 2005 at 03:31:20AM +0100, Carlos Rodrigues wrote:
> Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> >Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
> >of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
> >my harddisk?  I'll  run e2fsck to check on defragmentation but would still
> >like to know how to run the defrag program.
> >Thanks for your replys and consideration of my request,
> 
> e2defrag can't defrag your filesystem because it doesn't understand some 
> of the options set on it. The probable reason is the "dir_index" flag 
> (hashed directories for fast access when they have lots of files), but I 
> don't even know if it could handle it even without it (because of the 
> journal).
> 
> Bottom line is: if you could force it to do its job, it would most 
> likely trash your filesystem.

# apt-cache show defrag | less

Package: defrag
[..]
Description: ext2, minix and xiafs filesystem defragmenter
 
Wouldn't risk it on ext3. If it shouldn't be used on ext2 it should be
removed.

-- 
Chris.
==


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Joris Huizer]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:

On Sunday 22 May 2005 03:33 pm, Bill Mair wrote:


Steve Lamb wrote:
> Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
>>Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
>>of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
>>my harddisk?





debian FS != DOS FS




This is about the best explanation I've ever seen, even if it a 
couple of years old now:



http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandrake/msg/38a9eeb8d01b1dbb?hl=en 





Just to make this clear, this page explains the linux kernel does 
reordering reading/writing on the disc, which, among other things, takes 
care of the fragmentation problem; this is done by linux 2.4 (probably 
also by linux 2.2) and linux 2.6


HTH,

Joris


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Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System-No Problem!

[Leonard Chatagnier]

Thanks to everyone who patiently helped me to remove all my scepticism 
about defragging a linux system. I am
convinced and Carlos Rodrigues' explanation of how a linux/unix fs works 
went a long way in doing this.  I'm going to remove/purge e2defrag from 
my HD and just forget about defragging although I might look into 
dump/restore just in case my system falls into one of those exceptional 
cases as I'm alittle tight of space.
I don't consider my post any waste of time as it should help convince 
other former mswindows users who just
know as I did once that at some point in time all hard drives had to be 
defragged.  Again, thanks to all of
you for adding a little more knowledge and understanding of how linux 
works.  I've long known about the shortcommings of Dos/Windows just 
didn't know any details about the advantages of other operating systems.


Leonard Chatagnier

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:

   Thanks for the reply as I would like to get to the bottom of this.
   ...snipped


It is a trivial amount. On ext3 filesystems with some fairly regular use 
you should see fragmentation always around 5%. This is normal, and has 
no impact in performance.


On DOS filesystems, the defrag program puts everything on the start of 
the drive. You may think that this is good for performance, but consider 
this:


- When a file has to be extended (after the fs having been defragged), 
the next block will be put after all the other files. This will is much 
worse than having a small amount of fragmented files on an ext3 fs, 
which will have all their blocks somewhat near.


This means that 5% fragmentation on an ext3 fs means basically nothing, 
whereas it may mean some performance degradation on a DOS fs.


   Can you elaborate on why extension 3 file systems wont become
   fragmented over time. 



*nix filesystems in general distribute files and their blocks in the fs, 
in ways that let them grow over time and reduce fragmentation. This 
could mean that some blocks are left free after some files are created, 
or that writes are deferred slightly in order to better know where to 
allocate new blocks and know if the file has potential to grow a lot or not.


Every fs has its own way to do it, but they don't suffer from 
performance degradation from fragmentation. Period.


Actually, there is one situation where this may actually happen: on very 
active filesystems, with almost no free space.
In this case, fragmentation becomes an issue, but this mostly _never_ 
happens in real life, and when it does... dump/restore (move everything 
somewhere else, and then move it back).


   Do I have to revert to ext 2 fs in order to defrag a hard drive
   safely? Debian appears to put out the message that ext3 file system
   is the greatest yet I don't seem to be able to use any utilities to
   maintain it. 



You can't use e2defrag, which hardly qualifies as "any utilities".

Let me state this one more time: e2defrag is merely a proof-of-concept, 
nobody actually uses it (which is why it doesn't support the latest 
additions to ext3).


I know it is difficult to accept this, coming from a Windows background, 
but this is how things work in the unix world (or everywhere besides 
MS-land, for that matter).


   Or if asking for comments on this is more than you care to do,
   perhaps you can offer some references(normal human readable types)
   that explains my concerns. 



The references on this are mostly highly technical, and you can find a 
bunch of those by googling. But sometimes the best way to is just to try 
and forget the habits learned on MS-land and adopt a wait-and-see approach.


Just let your filesystems be, and in time you will realise that they 
works very well without the rituals you are used to perform on your 
Windows systems.


I know what I'm talking about, because I already asked the same 
questions you are asking now and it took me quite some time to finally 
believe it to be true.


And after 8 years using Linux all the time, I came to find the MS-land 
rituals somewhat exotic (if unix filesystems take care of themselves, 
why can't the so called New Technology File System?).


   Why does Debian put out programs that will trash the system without
   at least giving some warning? 



If it didn't give any warning, you would have a trashed fs by now. 
Refusing to work is enough warning, if you ask me.


Just to finish, I understand you wanting to know more before believing 
what we are saying, but understand that this is something that most unix 
folks know as fact, proven by everyday experience.


Most people don't actually know the specifics on why this is so, but 
know that their many-years-old filesystems don't turn slow just from 
using them.


Carlos Rodrigues


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Mike]

Carlos Rodrigues wrote:



The references on this are mostly highly technical, and you can find a 
bunch of those by googling. But sometimes the best way to is just to 
try and forget the habits learned on MS-land and adopt a wait-and-see 
approach.


Just let your filesystems be, and in time you will realise that they 
works very well without the rituals you are used to perform on your 
Windows systems.


I know what I'm talking about, because I already asked the same 
questions you are asking now and it took me quite some time to finally 
believe it to be true.


And after 8 years using Linux all the time, I came to find the MS-land 
rituals somewhat exotic (if unix filesystems take care of themselves, 
why can't the so called New Technology File System?).



It was supposed to if you remember. NT didn't come with a defrag utility 
until a certian service pack after they figured out that they were wrong 
in their assumption that NTFS didn't need to be defragmented. To put a 
fine point on it, MS screwed up.


And to throw salt in the wound, they have such a crappy defrag utility 
included with their NTFS based OS's due to a patent issue with Executive 
Software. (Who they originally contracted with to do FAT... HA HA!)


-Mike


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Michelle Konzack]

Am 2005-05-20 17:10:25, schrieb Leonard Chatagnier:
> Have read manuals and done Google Debian search but can't get e2defrag 
> to run on KI 2.6.8-2-686
> with Ext 3 FS.  Here's what I did and results:
   
> ChatagnierL-Home:/var/log#  *e2defrag -drsv /dev/hda2*
   
> DEBUG: read_tables()
> 
> e2defrag (/dev/hda2): filesystem has unsupported features

'e2defrag' can not defrag ext3 FileSystems
Even for ext2 you never should it.

You can force e2defrag, but it will destroy your ext3 Journal

> Leonard Chatagnier

Greetings
Michelle

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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Steve Lamb]

Carlos Rodrigues wrote:
> And after 8 years using Linux all the time, I came to find the MS-land
> rituals somewhat exotic (if unix filesystems take care of themselves,
> why can't the so called New Technology File System?).

It can.  NTFS is a dirivative of OS/2's HPFS.  HPFS didn't have a defrag
worth mention either for much the same reasons as have been discussed here.
In fact in all my time running NTFS I've hardly ever thought to defrag.  When
I have it was because of people coming from FAT habits trying to solve
unlreated problems (latest was City of Heroes server lagginess, go fig) and I
would defrag just to prove them wrong (No, really, disk "fragmentation" means
nothing to server-side lag, see!?).  In each case the defragmentation took
forever and resulted in absolutely no perceptable improvement of performance.

> Most people don't actually know the specifics on why this is so, but
> know that their many-years-old filesystems don't turn slow just from
> using them.

Point in support of this statement.  I've had hard drives physically fail
before my ext2/ext3 file systems have failed.  While I am not pushing them as
hard as they would be pushed in a production environment they aren't lax,
either.  ;)

--
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   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Carlos Rodrigues]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
Thanks for the reply as I would like to get to the bottom of this.  I 
get the general message.  However, contrary to what has been said, I 
have at least one partition with 4.5% fragmentation(e2fsck reports) 
which I don't consider a trivial amound.


It is a trivial amount. On ext3 filesystems with some fairly regular use 
you should see fragmentation always around 5%. This is normal, and has 
no impact in performance.


On DOS filesystems, the defrag program puts everything on the start of 
the drive. You may think that this is good for performance, but consider 
this:


- When a file has to be extended (after the fs having been defragged), 
the next block will be put after all the other files. This will is much 
worse than having a small amount of fragmented files on an ext3 fs, 
which will have all their blocks somewhat near.


This means that 5% fragmentation on an ext3 fs means basically nothing, 
whereas it may mean some performance degradation on a DOS fs.


Can 
you elaborate on why extension 3 file systems wont become fragmented 
over time.


*nix filesystems in general distribute files and their blocks in the fs, 
in ways that let them grow over time and reduce fragmentation. This 
could mean that some blocks are left free after some files are created, 
or that writes are deferred slightly in order to better know where to 
allocate new blocks and know if the file has potential to grow a lot or not.


Every fs has its own way to do it, but they don't suffer from 
performance degradation from fragmentation. Period.


Actually, there is one situation where this may actually happen: on very 
active filesystems, with almost no free space.
In this case, fragmentation becomes an issue, but this mostly _never_ 
happens in real life, and when it does... dump/restore (move everything 
somewhere else, and then move it back).


Do I have to revert to ext 2 fs in order to defrag a hard 
drive safely?  Debian appears to put out the message that ext3 file 
system is the greatest yet I don't seem to be able to use any utilities 
to maintain it.


You can't use e2defrag, which hardly qualifies as "any utilities".

Let me state this one more time: e2defrag is merely a proof-of-concept, 
nobody actually uses it (which is why it doesn't support the latest 
additions to ext3).


I know it is difficult to accept this, coming from a Windows background, 
but this is how things work in the unix world (or everywhere besides 
MS-land, for that matter).


Or if asking for comments on this is more than you care 
to do, perhaps you can offer some references(normal human readable 
types) that explains my concerns.


The references on this are mostly highly technical, and you can find a 
bunch of those by googling. But sometimes the best way to is just to try 
and forget the habits learned on MS-land and adopt a wait-and-see approach.


Just let your filesystems be, and in time you will realise that they 
works very well without the rituals you are used to perform on your 
Windows systems.


I know what I'm talking about, because I already asked the same 
questions you are asking now and it took me quite some time to finally 
believe it to be true.


And after 8 years using Linux all the time, I came to find the MS-land 
rituals somewhat exotic (if unix filesystems take care of themselves, 
why can't the so called New Technology File System?).


 Why does Debian put out programs that will trash the system without at 
least giving some warning?


If it didn't give any warning, you would have a trashed fs by now. 
Refusing to work is enough warning, if you ask me.


Just to finish, I understand you wanting to know more before believing 
what we are saying, but understand that this is something that most unix 
folks know as fact, proven by everyday experience.


Most people don't actually know the specifics on why this is so, but 
know that their many-years-old filesystems don't turn slow just from 
using them.


Carlos Rodrigues


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Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Leonard Chatagnier]

On Sunday 22 May 2005 03:33 pm, Bill Mair wrote:

Steve Lamb wrote:
> Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
>>Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
>>of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
>>my harddisk?



debian FS != DOS FS



This is about the best explanation I've ever seen, even if it a couple of 
years old now:


http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandrake/msg/38a9eeb8d01b1dbb?hl=en

Hello Everybody, Iwant to thank all of you who had the patience to stay with me 
and answer
my questions.  And, yes, I did get the message and wont use e2defrag.  BTW, it 
was easy to
find the file as it is a Debian package that I've seen before and easily found 
with wajig search.

A couple of responders mentioned dump/restore to do what I was thinking of doing with e2defrag. 
I read the man file but don't really understand what it does as being a newbie I don't really know 
what an inode or journal is.  Before I close this thread, perhaps one of you would give me a little

more insight on it and whether or not I should use it.  Thanks again for you 
patience.

Leonard Chatagnier


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[John Hasler]

Rob writes:
> This is about the best explanation I've ever seen, even if it a couple of
> years old now:

> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandrake/msg/38a9eeb8d01b1dbb?hl=en

Also of note is the fact that ext2 uses a loosest fit algorithm (also known
as "worst fit") rather than the tightest fit algorithm (also known as "best
fit") historically used by FAT filesystems.
-- 
John Hasler


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Adam Fabian]

On 5/22/05, Leonard Chatagnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Adam Fabian wrote:
> 
> >On 5/20/05, Leonard Chatagnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>more than 5 months old and has never been defragged but I'm still very
> >>much a newbie.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It's very unlikely that your filesystem needs defragmenting after 5
> >months.  As other have already noted, ext3 isn't prone to
> >fragmentation.  I wasn't even aware there was an ext2 defragmenting
> >utility, though.  The traditional solution would be to use
> >dump/restore.
> >
> >
> >
> A! That sounds like something that will read the hard drive and
> write back each file to the drive in a
> contiguous manner removing lost drive space something akin to MS
> defrag.  Am I correct in my assumption?
> After scanning man dumpe2fs, I see mention of tune2fs and still wonder
> if I have to remove some ext3 fs features
> in order to run dump2fs on an ext3 fs.  Do I?  There were a couple more
> dump programs, dump2 and dump, I believe were the names.  From the man,
> I believe you mean the dump2fs as it mentions ext3 in it.  Am I correct
> here?
> If use of dump/restore is safe besides being the traditional solution,
> I'd be grad to try it out.  Is it relatively safe for
> a newbie to use?  Are there options I should use to assure not screwing
> up my HD?
> Thanks for your response and for seeing my request to copy my email
> address.  It makes my response much easier to do.
> Leonard Chatagnier

Well, I trust *BSD's dump/restore completely.  (I know more about *BSD
than Linux.)  When I say "traditional," I mean that it's what UNIX
system administrators did on those extremely rare occasions when
fragmentation became a problem.  I know a guy that used to do it on to
big reels of tape.  Under Linux, I might be inclined to use GNU tar,
mke2fs, and untar the the files back onto the filesystem.

It's a waste of time with 4.5% fragmentation, though.  I don't even
think Windows utilities recommend you defragment with less than 10%
fragmentation, as a rule.  (Though the filesystems are dissimilar
enough that I don't necessarily mean to imply that I know a comparison
of this sort is relevant.)

-- 
Adam Fabian
([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Rob Bochan]

On Sunday 22 May 2005 03:33 pm, Bill Mair wrote:
> Steve Lamb wrote:
> > Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> >>Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
> >>of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
> >>my harddisk?

> debian FS != DOS FS


This is about the best explanation I've ever seen, even if it a couple of 
years old now:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandrake/msg/38a9eeb8d01b1dbb?hl=en

HTH

-- 

...Rob
Return address is obfuscated.
You can reach me via robslaptop (at) gmail dot com


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Bill Mair]

Steve Lamb wrote:

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:


Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
my harddisk?



I'd say you're not getting the message.

You don't need to do it.  Period.  Full stop.  There is no insight or
knowledge needed beyond that statement because it simply is not needed and
highly recommended you do NOT do it as it be destructive.


Signed.

ext2/3 are not DOS based file systems. That you even *found* the old
e2defrag is a wonder in it's own right.

Forget about it, continue living and let linux do it's thing.

*IF* you feel that a defrag *HAS* to be done, which I very much doubt,
then dump the FS and reload it.

debian FS != DOS FS

And it is better that way :)

--
Bill


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Paul Johnson]

On Sunday May 22 2005 2:55 am, Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> Adam Fabian wrote:
> >On 5/20/05, Leonard Chatagnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>more than 5 months old and has never been defragged but I'm still
> >> very much a newbie.
> >
> >It's very unlikely that your filesystem needs defragmenting after
> > 5 months.  As other have already noted, ext3 isn't prone to
> > fragmentation.  I wasn't even aware there was an ext2
> > defragmenting utility, though.  The traditional solution would be
> > to use dump/restore.
>
> A! That sounds like something that will read the hard drive and
> write back each file to the drive in a
> contiguous manner removing lost drive space something akin to MS
> defrag.  Am I correct in my assumption?

Not really, since Linux doesn't put things down in a contiguous 
manner, as I understand it.


-- 
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://ursine.ca/~baloo/


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Paul Johnson]

On Sunday May 22 2005 2:24 am, Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
>
> Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and
> knowledge of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error
> and not distroy my harddisk?  I'll  run e2fsck to check on
> defragmentation but would still like to know how to run the defrag
> program.

You can't with ext3, not that you should.  It wasn't designed for 
that.

-- 
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://ursine.ca/~baloo/


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Steve Lamb]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
> of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
> my harddisk?

I'd say you're not getting the message.

You don't need to do it.  Period.  Full stop.  There is no insight or
knowledge needed beyond that statement because it simply is not needed and
highly recommended you do NOT do it as it be destructive.

--
 Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
   PGP Key: 8B6E99C5   | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
---+-


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Leonard Chatagnier]

Adam Fabian wrote:


On 5/20/05, Leonard Chatagnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

 


more than 5 months old and has never been defragged but I'm still very
much a newbie.
   



It's very unlikely that your filesystem needs defragmenting after 5
months.  As other have already noted, ext3 isn't prone to
fragmentation.  I wasn't even aware there was an ext2 defragmenting
utility, though.  The traditional solution would be to use
dump/restore.

 

A! That sounds like something that will read the hard drive and 
write back each file to the drive in a
contiguous manner removing lost drive space something akin to MS 
defrag.  Am I correct in my assumption?
After scanning man dumpe2fs, I see mention of tune2fs and still wonder 
if I have to remove some ext3 fs features
in order to run dump2fs on an ext3 fs.  Do I?  There were a couple more 
dump programs, dump2 and dump, I believe were the names.  From the man, 
I believe you mean the dump2fs as it mentions ext3 in it.  Am I correct 
here?
If use of dump/restore is safe besides being the traditional solution, 
I'd be grad to try it out.  Is it relatively safe for
a newbie to use?  Are there options I should use to assure not screwing 
up my HD?
Thanks for your response and for seeing my request to copy my email 
address.  It makes my response much easier to do.

Leonard Chatagnier


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Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Leonard Chatagnier]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:

Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
my harddisk?  I'll  run e2fsck to check on defragmentation but would still
like to know how to run the defrag program.
Thanks for your replys and consideration of my request,
 



>e2defrag can't defrag your filesystem because it doesn't understand 
some of the options set on it. The >probable reason is the "dir_index" 
flag (hashed directories for fast access when they have lots of files), 
>but I don't even know if it could handle it even without it (because 
of the journal).
I gathered this from the comments about the tune2fs commmand found in 
man e2defrag but couldn't get the
features to add or remove as originally posted.  If it had, I probably 
would have run e2fsck and e2defrag
as indicated to defrag my hard drive. Guess its good I couldn't get the 
programs to run. I gathered or assumed from the man that if I could get 
the ext3 fs features to be removed or cleared that I could safely run 
e2defrag.  Now via the response postings that may have trashed my hard 
drive.


>Bottom line is: if you could force it to do its job, it would most 
likely trash your filesystem.


>But... as others said, you don't need to bother with fragmentation 
with *nix filesystems in general.


Thanks for the reply as I would like to get to the bottom of this.  I 
get the general message.  However, contrary to what has been said, I 
have at least one partition with 4.5% fragmentation(e2fsck reports) 
which I don't consider a trivial amound.  And I understand if I attempt 
to defrag(which the program wont even do as originally described) its 
almost certain to trash my hard drive.  Well, coming from m$windows as 
most people have, its hard to accept that after many installs, removals, 
upgrades, distribution upgrades, more removals and more, the drive wont 
become considerably fragmented.  Yet, all of you have said it wont.  Can 
you elaborate on why extension 3 file systems wont become fragmented 
over time.  Do I have to revert to ext 2 fs in order to defrag a hard 
drive safely?  Debian appears to put out the message that ext3 file 
system is the greatest yet I don't seem to be able to use any utilities 
to maintain it.  Or if asking for comments on this is more than you care 
to do, perhaps you can offer some references(normal human readable 
types) that explains my concerns.
After several months, posts to lists, etc, I now have a fairly fully 
functional Debian system even though something fails, or doesn't work 
the same, just about every time I boot up or upgrade.  I'm now at the 
point I'd like to do some fine tuning to improve speed, etc., but 
getting utilities to work right is difficult even after reading the 
mans, infos, howtos, etc.  I'm no programmer, but would like to get 
comfortable with
linux and be able to handle most everything on my own.  Reading man, 
infos and googling hasn't helped much as most are written as if you had 
a good background in linux and knew what was being talked about.

I appreciate your response and hope you will respond again.

>And one more thing, even if e2defrag could handle every kind of ext3 
filesystem out there, I wouldn't ever >trust it. You could probably 
count the people that have used it with the fingers in one hand (and 
that >includes its author). :)
Why does Debian put out programs that will trash the system without at 
least giving some warning?


Carlos Rodrigues

Thanks in advance for any followups on this.

Leonard Chatagnier


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Carlos Rodrigues]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:

Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
my harddisk?  I'll  run e2fsck to check on defragmentation but would still
like to know how to run the defrag program.
Thanks for your replys and consideration of my request,


e2defrag can't defrag your filesystem because it doesn't understand some 
of the options set on it. The probable reason is the "dir_index" flag 
(hashed directories for fast access when they have lots of files), but I 
don't even know if it could handle it even without it (because of the 
journal).


Bottom line is: if you could force it to do its job, it would most 
likely trash your filesystem.


But... as others said, you don't need to bother with fragmentation with 
*nix filesystems in general.


And one more thing, even if e2defrag could handle every kind of ext3 
filesystem out there, I wouldn't ever trust it. You could probably count 
the people that have used it with the fingers in one hand (and that 
includes its author). :)


Carlos Rodrigues


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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Adam Fabian]

On 5/20/05, Leonard Chatagnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> more than 5 months old and has never been defragged but I'm still very
> much a newbie.

It's very unlikely that your filesystem needs defragmenting after 5
months.  As other have already noted, ext3 isn't prone to
fragmentation.  I wasn't even aware there was an ext2 defragmenting
utility, though.  The traditional solution would be to use
dump/restore.

-- 
Adam Fabian
([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Leonard Chatagnier]

On Friday May 20 2005 10:10 am, Leonard Chatagnier wrote:

Have read manuals and done Google Debian search but can't get
e2defrag to run on KI 2.6.8-2-686
with Ext 3 FS.

Paul Johnson Wrote:
Don't bother.  Fragmentation isn't a problem on ext2 and ext3, I 
really can't see any justification for e2defrag's existence.  You can 
literally never defrag and not run into problems.

Ok, I get your message, but for my gratification, insight and knowledge
of Linux how do I get the programs to run without error and not distroy
my harddisk?  I'll  run e2fsck to check on defragmentation but would still
like to know how to run the defrag program.
Thanks for your replys and consideration of my request,

Leonard Chatagnier
--

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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Paul Johnson]

On Friday May 20 2005 10:10 am, Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> Have read manuals and done Google Debian search but can't get
> e2defrag to run on KI 2.6.8-2-686
> with Ext 3 FS.

Don't bother.  Fragmentation isn't a problem on ext2 and ext3, I 
really can't see any justification for e2defrag's existence.  You can 
literally never defrag and not run into problems.

-- 
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Can't Defrag Ext3 File System

[Roberto C. Sanchez]

Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> Have read manuals and done Google Debian search but can't get e2defrag
> to run on KI 2.6.8-2-686
> with Ext 3 FS.  Here's what I did and results:
> ChatagnierL-Home:/var/log#  *e2defrag -drsv /dev/hda2*
> DEBUG: read_tables()
> 
> e2defrag (/dev/hda2): filesystem has unsupported features

Why are you trying to defrag?  ext2 and ext3 do a good job of keeping
their fragmentation levels very low (remember, these are not Microsoft
products).  Unless you have extraordinary curcimstances, you probably
don't need to bother.

-Roberto

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Re: file system check, and defrag

[Micha Feigin]

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 11:47, Kordula Martin wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> being real new to Debian, and fairly new to Linux, I have the following 
> questions -
> 
> I have 3.0r1 Woody installed with ext3 file systems and would like to 
> periodically check, and then defrag, the file system(s).
> 
> 1.  How (and what is the best way) to do this?
> 2.  Other distributions I've had installed, run a file system check at 
> bootup.  Why not Debian?
> 3.  How can I setup Debian to check at bootup?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Kordula

Debian runs fsck every several boots just in case and after a crash.
On ext[23] you don't need to run defrag as the filesystem maintains
intself. There is actually a tool floating around for that job but I've
never had of anyone needing or using it.
IIRC (didn't use ext for some time now) at boot or when fsck runs you
get a message about the fragmentation of your system. I never got it
beyond 5% (reiserfs doesn't show this information for some reason).
You should keep about 15%-20% free space on the disk though to let ext
have enough room to move things around when needed to maintain itself
(thats actually true for all file systems. If you run defrag under
windows with less then 15% you will get a warning message).
-- 
Micha Feigin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: file system check, and defrag

[ajlewis2]

In gmane.linux.debian.user, you wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> being real new to Debian, and fairly new to Linux, I have the following 
> questions -
>
> I have 3.0r1 Woody installed with ext3 file systems and would like to 
> periodically check, and then defrag, the file system(s).
>
> 1.  How (and what is the best way) to do this?
> 2.  Other distributions I've had installed, run a file system check at 
> bootup.  Why not Debian?
> 3.  How can I setup Debian to check at bootup?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Kordula

I've installed several distros over the years and never seen one that did
the filesystem check at every boot.  Most have been set to run after 30
boots or so.  If you want to change this, see 'man tune2fs' especially '-i'
which is used to set the interval.

Anita


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Re: file system check, and defrag

[Ron Johnson]

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 03:47, Kordula Martin wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> being real new to Debian, and fairly new to Linux, I have the following 
> questions -
> 
> I have 3.0r1 Woody installed with ext3 file systems and would like to 
> periodically check, and then defrag, the file system(s).
> 
> 1.  How (and what is the best way) to do this?

You don't need to defragment files unless you use DOS/Windows
filesystems like FAT or NTFS.

> 2.  Other distributions I've had installed, run a file system check at 
> bootup.  Why not Debian?

Debian most certainly will/does do fsck at boot time, just not
every time.  Imagine how long boots would be with modern-sized
disks.  Look at the tune2fs mn page, and search for the -c and -i
options, for the reason.

To force an fsck on the next boot, "# touch /forcefsck".  See
/etc/init.d/checkroot.sh for example.

> 3.  How can I setup Debian to check at bootup?

See answer #2.

> Thanks in advance!
> Kordula

-- 
-
Ron Johnson, Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jefferson, LA USA

Spit in one hand, and wish for peace in the other.
Guess which is more effective...


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file system check, and defrag

[Kordula Martin]

Hi all,

being real new to Debian, and fairly new to Linux, I have the following 
questions -

I have 3.0r1 Woody installed with ext3 file systems and would like to 
periodically check, and then defrag, the file system(s).

1.  How (and what is the best way) to do this?
2.  Other distributions I've had installed, run a file system check at 
bootup.  Why not Debian?
3.  How can I setup Debian to check at bootup?

Thanks in advance!
Kordula


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Re: Linux defragmenter? (ext2/3 defrag)

[Jacob Anawalt]

Robert Storey wrote:

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 03:03:36 -0700
Paul Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 08:23:04PM -0500, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
   

I just realized that I've never heard of a hard drive defragmenter
for Linux (ext2/ext3). Do I really live under a rock, or are they
really not used? If not, why?
 

My understanding is that ext2 and ext3 do a good job at keeping
themselves from getting fragmented.
   

This question gets asked a lot. Linux filesystems defragment themselves automatically - human intervention isn't needed. But to make it work properly, you do need to be sure that you keep some empty space (about 20%) on your partitions. The command "df -h" should tell you how much space is being used. Note that even with a Windows defragmenter, you still have this issue of needing empty space.
 

I haven't read about how any other filesystems used with the Linux 
kernel work, but the popular ext2 (and ext3 journaling extensions) use 
of inodes scattered across your partition(s) does a very good job of 
file management in a way that for most file operations avoids 
fragmentation when there is enough free space to write contiguous files.

The exception is for files that are constantly appended to and not 
rewritten. Almost all the files in /var/log and /var/spool fall into 
this case and back up the argument to put at least /var on it's own 
partition for servers. If anyone has some insights on filesystems for 
linux that offer better performance and minimized file fragmentation for 
continually growing files like log and mailbox files, I'd appreciate 
hearing about it. I thought I had read an opinion once that the 
journaling option of ext3 might more of a performance hit than it's 
worth for the /var tree and that you might want to do a filesystem check 
on that tree anyway after a crash.

Even with high fragmentation, people don't complain about serious 
slowdowns. Maybe that is why you don't hear people talking about defrag 
for ext2/3 file systems, and the defrag tool I knew about, e2defrag, is 
very out of date. I hate to even mention it here for fear it might spur 
someone's interest. I don't recomend you use it. Use these 'defrag 
tools' instead:

To defrag a directory (just the directory structure, not the files in 
the directory) and keep the contents of the directory available for 
access as long as possible try this:

mkdir newdir
ln currentdir/* newdir/
mv currentdir/ olddir/
mv newdir/ currentdir/
rm -rf olddir/
Replace ln with cp -ar if you want to have the contents of the directory 
also try to reconsolidate themselves on the disk, or with mv if you 
don't have the free space to copy the files and/or dont care if the file 
is inaccessable longer. From what I had read, using e2defrag required 
that the partition was unmounted, so the above commands are better in 
that sense.

Another ext2/3 'defrag' utility is tar:

cd /tmp
tar -czf mailspool.tgz -C /var/spool mail/
cd /var/spool
rm -rf mail
tar -xzf /tmp/mailspool.tgz
With all of these commands, let the user beware. Double-check yourself 
before committing to a rm -rf call. For example, if you're messing with 
/var/spool/mail, your mail programs should be stopped. Even better you 
should be in single user mode. Be sure you are really loosing 
performance and understand what you are about to do before wasting an 
hour trying to gain a couple seconds back. Using tar to copy an entire 
partition to a tar file on another partition should result in the best 
gains.

I have yet to experiance a situation where I've felt I need to defrag my 
ext2/3 partitions. The only reason the thought had crossed my mind for 
me to research a while ago this in the first place was my conditioning 
from using HPFS, NTFS and FAT(32) file systems.

Jacob

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RE: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[Matthew Sherborne]

I found a good defragger, and did the job.

At the end, and some way through the disk were directory entries and one
.cpl file. But the program I used allowed me to click on the sector, see
what the file or directory was, then I copied it, deleted the original and
renamed the copy.

And best of all it's FreeWare! Here's the URL: www.oo-software.com

Thanks all for your help and suggestions

Matthew Sherborne

> -Original Message-
> From: Mike [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, 10 October 2000 3:53 p.m.
> To: debian user
> Subject: Re: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS
>
>
> Matthew Sherborne wrote:
> > Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000 that
> > won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?
> >
> > I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I
> can't defrag the
> > drive to shift everything to the front.
>
> One instance where I've heard of files refusing to be moved is
> from the swap
> files.  As far as I know the way around this is to turn off the swap in
> Windows, and then try the defrag again.
> --
> Mike Werner  KA8YSD   | He that is slow to believe anything and
>   | everything is of great understanding,
> '91 GS500E| for belief in one false principle is the
> Morgantown WV | beginning of all unwisdom.
>
>

Re: AW: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[mike]

I just checked execsoft.com and 'Diskeeper 5.0' which 
they claim is the only certified defragmenter for windows 2000
 is still available in a trialware version.
Its not the same version as 'diskeeper lite' for nt.

On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 17:06:34 +0200, Reinemuth, Jens said:

> ok, diskeeper is free for nt4, not for 2000 (at least there is no diskeeper
>  lite  for 2000...) and the nt-version isn't even instlling on 2000...
>  
>  but what about speeddisk2000 from norton or the good old oo-defrag??
>  
>  they are found on 
>  www.norton.com
>  and
>  www.oo-software.de
>  
>  
>  --- 
>  
>  
>   I used a program called 'Diskeeper ' Defrag which was
>  able to remove   those end of drive directories from Win.
>   Its commercial software but it was available on a free 30
>  day evaluation trial (don't know if it still is) from execsoft.com.
>  
>  
>  On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 15:16:09 +1300, Matthew Sherborne said:
>  
>  > Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000 that
>  >  won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?
>  >  
>  >  I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't defrag
>  the
>  >  drive to shift everything to the front.
>  >  
>  >  Matthew Sherborne
> 

-- 
gEEk||dOOd^Deb+ian&&XFce$everything goes(-_-)

Re: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[mike]

I used a program called 'Diskeeper ' Defrag which was
able to remove  those end of drive directories from Win.
Its commercial software but it was available on a free 30
day evaluation trial (don't know if it still is) from execsoft.com.


On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 15:16:09 +1300, Matthew Sherborne said:

> Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000 that
>  won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?
>  
>  I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't defrag the
>  drive to shift everything to the front.
>  
>  Matthew Sherborne
>  

-- 
gEEk||dOOd^Deb+ian&&XFce$everything goes(-_-)

RE: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[Anderson, Tim TL33E]

Norton Speed Disk (part of Norton Utilities and SystemWorks) will fix it
nicely in Win9x. You can tell the directories and the swap file to go
wherever you want them to be.They don't seem to have anything out for
Win2K yet.  There are only one or two utilities packages out there for 2K so
far, I haven't tried them cos I don't want to shell out $60 (I've been
spoilt by open source, hate paying for software!)
You could try backing up, reinstalling to a shrunken partition, and
restoring - but remove all your passwords first.  Don't take my word for it
though.  My real advice is get a nice big hard drive :-)


Tim 
-Original Message-
From:   Mike [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Monday, October 09, 2000 10:53 PM
To: debian user
    Subject:Re: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS
Matthew Sherborne wrote:
> Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000
that
> won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?
>=20
> I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't
defrag =
the
> drive to shift everything to the front.

One instance where I've heard of files refusing to be moved is from
the swap
files.  As far as I know the way around this is to turn off the swap
in
Windows, and then try the defrag again.

Re: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[Willy Lee]

"Matthew" == Matthew Sherborne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000
> that won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?

> I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't
> defrag the drive to shift everything to the front.

> Matthew Sherborne

Yes, the default defragger sucks.  Norton Utilities' defragger is very
good, and will move _everything_.  Just note, that if all of Norton
Utilities is installed, it has a program called "disk image" IIRC,
which puts a hidden file at the very end of the disk, so you need to
turn off that program and delete the hidden file (I can't remember the
name, but it was mentioned in the FIPS docs) before running FIPS.

=wl

-- 
Albert ``Willy'' Lee, Emacs user, game programmer
"They call me CRAZY - just because I DARE to DREAM of a RACE of 
SUPERHUMAN MONSTERS!"

Re: Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[Mike]

Matthew Sherborne wrote:
> Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000 that
> won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?
> 
> I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't defrag the
> drive to shift everything to the front.

One instance where I've heard of files refusing to be moved is from the swap
files.  As far as I know the way around this is to turn off the swap in
Windows, and then try the defrag again.
-- 
Mike Werner  KA8YSD   | He that is slow to believe anything and
  | everything is of great understanding,
'91 GS500E| for belief in one false principle is the
Morgantown WV | beginning of all unwisdom.



pgpvcHOVwz2cA.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Defrag in Win2000 no good for FIPS

[Matthew Sherborne]

Does anyone know of a good defrag program for plain DOS or Win2000 that
won't leave directory entries at the end of the drive ?

I want to install Debian to share a Win2000 computer but, I can't defrag the
drive to shift everything to the front.

Matthew Sherborne
<>

Re: problems with defrag 0.73

[Jonathan H. Wheaton]

That's correct.  I've had filesystems for years that never get more than
a few percent fragmentation.  If you *really* want to do this, you need
to copy e2fsck and defrag to a floppy and boot off the rescue disk. When
the installation screen comes up, go to the option to start a shell (or
switch to the second virtual terminal) and mount the floppy under /mnt.
At this point none of your hard disk partitions are mounted so you can
run e2fsck and defrag on them.  Just ctl-alt-del to reboot the system
when you're finished.  I just e2fsck'd all the partitions on a box the
other night using this very method.

Jonathan

On Mon, Aug 23, 1999 at 01:00:13PM -0600, Cheshire wrote:
> You sure you need to defrag? I forget where the info was drawn from before,
> but anyway, by nature of the e2 file system, it's quite the rarity that it
> needs to be
> defraged--one of those FAT habits I was glad to kick.
> 
> |cheshire|
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Oliver Larisch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org 
> Date: Monday, August 23, 1999 7:13 AM
> Subject: problems with defrag 0.73
> 
> 
> >Hi !
> >I ve a little problem with defrag 0.73.
> >I tried  to e2defrag  my root partition /dev/hda4 and defrag said: cannot
> work
> >on mounted device. Then I 've tried to umount it but my system (debian 2.1
> >kernel 2.2.5) said:  device  is busy. I went to runlevel 1 in order to
> >singeluse it, but the same game went on. In runlevel 1 the root partition
> >/dev/hda4 is read only. I'm not able to unmount it.
> >What did I wrong and how to shoot it??
> >Thanx IA, for helping me.
> >
> >Oliver
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Langenfeld/Germany
> >
> >
> >--
> >Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] <
> /dev/null
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
> 

-- 
Jonathan H. Wheaton   |   Insert some cool saying here.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |   If you'd like, continue on this line.


pgpRhEl0pEsNc.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: problems with defrag 0.73

[Cheshire]

You sure you need to defrag? I forget where the info was drawn from before,
but anyway, by nature of the e2 file system, it's quite the rarity that it
needs to be
defraged--one of those FAT habits I was glad to kick.

|cheshire|

-Original Message-
From: Oliver Larisch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org 
Date: Monday, August 23, 1999 7:13 AM
Subject: problems with defrag 0.73


>Hi !
>I ve a little problem with defrag 0.73.
>I tried  to e2defrag  my root partition /dev/hda4 and defrag said: cannot
work
>on mounted device. Then I 've tried to umount it but my system (debian 2.1
>kernel 2.2.5) said:  device  is busy. I went to runlevel 1 in order to
>singeluse it, but the same game went on. In runlevel 1 the root partition
>/dev/hda4 is read only. I'm not able to unmount it.
>What did I wrong and how to shoot it??
>Thanx IA, for helping me.
>
>Oliver
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Langenfeld/Germany
>
>
>--
>Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] <
/dev/null
>
>

problems with defrag 0.73

[Oliver Larisch]

Hi !
I ve a little problem with defrag 0.73. 
I tried  to e2defrag  my root partition /dev/hda4 and defrag said: cannot work
on mounted device. Then I 've tried to umount it but my system (debian 2.1
kernel 2.2.5) said:  device  is busy. I went to runlevel 1 in order to
singeluse it, but the same game went on. In runlevel 1 the root partition
/dev/hda4 is read only. I'm not able to unmount it.
What did I wrong and how to shoot it??
Thanx IA, for helping me.

Oliver
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Langenfeld/Germany

Re: defrag

[Cheshire]

Stephen Pitts wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jul 23, 1999 at 12:05:51PM -0600, Cheshire wrote:
> > I wanted to defrag my file system but on the command 'defrag /dev/hda5'
> > and 'e2defrag /dev/hda5' I get: [e2]defrag: bad magic number in
> > super-block
> >
> > Feedback welcome and appreciated.
> >
> 
> Are you sure you need to defragment your partition? From the 
> Multiple-Disk-HOWTO:
> 13.2.  Defragmentation
> 
> This is very dependent on the file system design, some suffer fast and
> nearly debilitating fragmentation. Fortunately for us, ext2fs does not
> belong to this group and therefore there has been very little talk
> about defragmentation tools. It does in fact exist but is hardly ever
> needed.
> 
> If for some reason you feel this is necessary, the quick and easy
> solution is to do a backup and a restore. If only a small area is
> affected, for instance the home directories, you could tar it over to
> a temporary area on another partition, verify the archive, delete the
> original and then untar it back again.
> 
> --
> Stephen Pitts
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> webmaster - http://www.mschess.org


>From the description, chances are decent that I don't. One of those
nasty win/fat habits I suppose :)

Re: defrag

[Stephen Pitts]

On Fri, Jul 23, 1999 at 12:05:51PM -0600, Cheshire wrote:
> I wanted to defrag my file system but on the command 'defrag /dev/hda5'
> and 'e2defrag /dev/hda5' I get: [e2]defrag: bad magic number in
> super-block
> 
> Feedback welcome and appreciated.
> 

Are you sure you need to defragment your partition? From the 
Multiple-Disk-HOWTO:
13.2.  Defragmentation

This is very dependent on the file system design, some suffer fast and
nearly debilitating fragmentation. Fortunately for us, ext2fs does not
belong to this group and therefore there has been very little talk
about defragmentation tools. It does in fact exist but is hardly ever
needed.

If for some reason you feel this is necessary, the quick and easy
solution is to do a backup and a restore. If only a small area is
affected, for instance the home directories, you could tar it over to
a temporary area on another partition, verify the archive, delete the
original and then untar it back again.

-- 
Stephen Pitts
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
webmaster - http://www.mschess.org

defrag

[Cheshire]

I wanted to defrag my file system but on the command 'defrag /dev/hda5'
and 'e2defrag /dev/hda5' I get: [e2]defrag: bad magic number in
super-block

Feedback welcome and appreciated.

|cheshire|

Re: defrag

[Raymond A. Ingles]

On Mon, 10 May 1999, Kenneth Scharf wrote:

> I installed the defrag package and read the man pages.  I'm not sure
> how to use this since my only filesystem is (usually) mounted, and
> anyway the defrag executable is on that filesystem!  I suppose I can
> copy the executable to a floppy, go to single user mode and then
> unmount the filesystem and run the executable from the floppy to defrag
> my disk?

 I'd suggest just backing up and restoring. This defragments just as well,
with much less risk of data loss...

> Anyway I tried (as root) to run defrag in test mode
> (e2defrag -r /dev/hda3) and got an error message {"can't seek to end of
> file system").  What does this mean?

 You could try installing it on the Debian rescue floppy and running it
from there... but backing up is safer.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles  (248) 377-7735 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

   We are Linux. Resistance is an indication that you missed the point.
- Brandon S. Allbery

defrag

[Kenneth Scharf]

I installed the defrag package and read the man pages.  I'm not sure
how to use this since my only filesystem is (usually) mounted, and
anyway the defrag executable is on that filesystem!  I suppose I can
copy the executable to a floppy, go to single user mode and then
unmount the filesystem and run the executable from the floppy to defrag
my disk?

Anyway I tried (as root) to run defrag in test mode
(e2defrag -r /dev/hda3) and got an error message {"can't seek to end of
file system").  What does this mean?

===
Amateur Radio, when all else fails!

http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze

Debian Gnu Linux, Live Free or .


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Re: defrag, non-contiguous file system

[Vincent Murphy]

On Sat, May 08, 1999 at 07:49:26PM -0700, Kenneth Scharf wrote:
> Each time my system runs fsck on reboot (when the disk reaches it's
> mount count limit) the file system appears more fragmented.  On the
> last fsck run it reported 5.7% non-contiguous.  Is this a problem and
> if so what should I do?

 i know that there is a package (in admin i think) called defrag, which you
may want to take a look at.  maybe there's something in the docs.

-vinny

defrag, non-contiguous file system

[Kenneth Scharf]

Each time my system runs fsck on reboot (when the disk reaches it's
mount count limit) the file system appears more fragmented.  On the
last fsck run it reported 5.7% non-contiguous.  Is this a problem and
if so what should I do?

===
Amateur Radio, when all else fails!

http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze

Debian Gnu Linux, Live Free or .


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Re: defrag

[Dietmar Schultz]

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Micha Feigin wrote:

> How do i go about running defrag on the system.

pre1st: Read this and decide if you realy want to do so,
1st: Make a backup,
2nd: Make shure the filesystem isn't mounted,
3rd: Start e2defrag /dev/??? # ??? = hda2, sdb4 etc...

> I get either an answear that it can't run on a mounted filsystem or

You either have to go into single-user-mode or start it from a
rescue-disk. Might be necessary if something still uses some files in
/usr or /var or you try to defrag the root-filesystem. You have to build a
recent boot-disk if you defrag the root-filesystem, cause lilo won't find
the kernel image after this. Then, if Linux is up, execute lilo.

> that it can't work on the disk.

This partition is to large or your memory is to low. Or both. Or it's
nearly full.

But don't bother, normaly you don't want to defrag a ext2-filesystem. It
takes care by itself to avoid fragmentation. 1-2% fragmentation is an
usual value and indeed wanted. The partition should have 1/4 left free, if
it gets too crowdy fragmentation goes up. Instead of using e2defrag, you
should get a bigger harddisk then.

Tschau, Dietmar

defrag

[Micha Feigin]

How do i go about running defrag on the system.
I get either an answear that it can't run on a mounted filsystem or
that it can't work on the disk.

_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win98 FAT32]

[Matt Folwell]

On Fri, Apr 23, 1999 at 09:39:12PM -0400, Jan Muszynski wrote:
> 
> 
> On 23 Apr 99, at 23:45,  Matt Folwell 
>  wrote about Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win:
>
> > Which FM did you find this is?  I've been unable to boot windows from lilo
> 
> /usr/docs/lilo/manual.txt.gz (or something like that, case might be off)

D'oh!  Now why didn't I think of that?

> > since I moved it (windows) to /dev/hdc.  I'd guess I need to use 0x82 where
> > you've used 0x81, but I'd rather make sure before I risk it, and I can't
> > see map-drive mentioned in the lilo.conf man page.
> 
> You can try it, but you might have a problem booting windows off 
> anything other than the first 2 drives. The one thing about MS OS's 
> in general (except for NT) they need to boot off of the the primary, 
> active partition, and I believe it can be the only primary partition 
> visible on the drive.
> 
> > 
> > For a while I was able to boot windows using other=/dev/hdc but this
> > suddenly stopped working, saying "Missing Operating System"  Does anyone
> > know what could cause that?
> 
> What primary partitions do you have on the first 2 drives? Did this 
> change between then and now?

It works now, thanks.  I did need 0x81, which I suppose is consistent
with my bios setup - of ide-0, -1, -2 and -3 I have to use ide-1 to boot
the second hard drive, even though it's the third ide device.

Maybe I should have given more details of my setup:
/dev/hda has 2 primary partitions for linux- / and swap, and an extended
partition with a few linux partitions and one fat32 one.
/dev/hdb is my cd rom drive
/dev/hdc has my primary win95 partition and another swap partition for
linux (also primary)

Anyway, either of these entries in lilo.conf will now boot windows:

other=/dev/hdc
label=Win95
  map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x81
  map-drive = 0x81
to = 0x80

other=/dev/hdc1
label=Win2
table=/dev/hdc
  map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x81
  map-drive = 0x81
to = 0x80

I wonder which is better.
I also now have 2 boot menus to go through before windows loads, and
they both default to linux :-)

-- 
Matt Folwell, Trinity College, Cambridge.  CB2 1TQ
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win98 FAT32]

[Jan Muszynski]

On 23 Apr 99, at 23:45,  Matt Folwell 
 wrote about Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win:

> On Thu, Apr 22, 1999 at 05:42:09PM -0500, Brad wrote:
> 
> > For quite a while, Windows refused to boot at all from lilo. i finally
> > solved the problem by using some obscure commands buried deep in TFM.
> > Probably you won't need them, but they're here for a reference anyway.
> > 
> >   other=/dev/hdb1
> > table=/dev/hdb
> >   # The map-drive directives make windows think it's on the primary
> >   # master drive instead of the primary slave. Windows would think
> >   # Linux was on the slave if it could see it.
> > map-drive = 0x80
> >   to = 0x81
> > map-drive = 0x81
> >   to = 0x80
> > label=win
> > alias=2
> 
> Which FM did you find this is?  I've been unable to boot windows from lilo

/usr/docs/lilo/manual.txt.gz (or something like that, case might be off)

> since I moved it (windows) to /dev/hdc.  I'd guess I need to use 0x82 where
> you've used 0x81, but I'd rather make sure before I risk it, and I can't
> see map-drive mentioned in the lilo.conf man page.

You can try it, but you might have a problem booting windows off 
anything other than the first 2 drives. The one thing about MS OS's 
in general (except for NT) they need to boot off of the the primary, 
active partition, and I believe it can be the only primary partition 
visible on the drive.

> 
> For a while I was able to boot windows using other=/dev/hdc but this
> suddenly stopped working, saying "Missing Operating System"  Does anyone
> know what could cause that?

What primary partitions do you have on the first 2 drives? Did this 
change between then and now?

TTFN
> 
> TIA,
> Matt
> 
> -- 
> Matt Folwell, Trinity College, Cambridge.  CB2 1TQ
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> -- 
> Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
> 
> 


==
   Jan M.-  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

   PGP key mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Fingerprint:397D 093C E802 964E  5316 B90A 93CE 6696
  
Thought for the day:
'Gratitude': An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary
 behavior,'altruism.' Both imaginaries are false faces for
 selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion.
-- Maureen Johnson, 'To Sail Beyond the Sunset'
   (Robert Heinlein)

Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win98 FAT32]

[Matt Folwell]

On Thu, Apr 22, 1999 at 05:42:09PM -0500, Brad wrote:

> For quite a while, Windows refused to boot at all from lilo. i finally
> solved the problem by using some obscure commands buried deep in TFM.
> Probably you won't need them, but they're here for a reference anyway.
> 
>   other=/dev/hdb1
> table=/dev/hdb
>   # The map-drive directives make windows think it's on the primary
>   # master drive instead of the primary slave. Windows would think
>   # Linux was on the slave if it could see it.
> map-drive = 0x80
>   to = 0x81
> map-drive = 0x81
>   to = 0x80
> label=win
> alias=2

Which FM did you find this is?  I've been unable to boot windows from lilo
since I moved it (windows) to /dev/hdc.  I'd guess I need to use 0x82 where
you've used 0x81, but I'd rather make sure before I risk it, and I can't
see map-drive mentioned in the lilo.conf man page.

For a while I was able to boot windows using other=/dev/hdc but this
suddenly stopped working, saying "Missing Operating System"  Does anyone
know what could cause that?

TIA,
Matt

-- 
Matt Folwell, Trinity College, Cambridge.  CB2 1TQ
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: W95 defrag

[Ray]

On Thu, Apr 22, 1999 at 06:03:27PM +0100, H C Pumphrey wrote:
> 
> A related question: the Linux+Win95 mini-HOWTO says that if you have FAT32
> you should not try using LILO. Is this info up-to-date?

I believe it's ok to use LILO but don't let it replace the MBR.  Just
install LILO on the same partition that you use for Linux and use fdisk to
set that partition as active (and make the C: partition inactive).  I think
(but could be wrong) that LILO can't be on a logical drive so if you are not
putting Linux on a primary partition you may need to make a small primary
just for LILO.  In any case, plan on doing your first couple of boots from
floppy and deal with LILO once you have your system (and TFM) installed.

> What about the
> business about the Linux boot partition having to start below sector 1024
> (assuming LILO can be used ).

This only matters if your system doesn't use LBA mode which is pretty rare
for systems that have drives big enough to need fat32.


-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: W95 defrag

[Colin Marquardt]

* Holger Mense <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, H C Pumphrey wrote:
>> Greetings, fellow  Debian fans,
>> 
>> This is only a proto-debian question, I'm afraid, but I have tried to
>> RTFM, honest. I'm trying to defrag the disc on a W95 laptop prior to using
>> FIPS to re-partition it so I can put Debian on it as well[1]. W95 defrag
>> will move a lot of stuff (which it colours turquoise) to the beginning of
>> the disc, but
>> 
>> (a) it wants to put some things at the end and
>> (b) there are some things which it colours red/white and won't move at
>> all. 
> Afaik defrag cannot move files, which have the one of the following
> attributes: read only, system or hidden.

Yes. Trying that on a friend´s computer, we had three rahter large
files lying around in the \windows\system directory with the system
(and hidden?)  attribute set. You could guess what files those are
by seeing what percentage these take of your harddisk. Removed the
attributes, defragged, set them again, et voila.

Cheers, Colin

-- 
Colin Marquardt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: W95 defrag [also lilo+Linux+Win98 FAT32]

[Brad]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, H C Pumphrey wrote:
> 
> Greetings, fellow  Debian fans,

Greetings (:

> This is only a proto-debian question, I'm afraid, but I have tried to
> RTFM, honest. I'm trying to defrag the disc on a W95 laptop prior to using
> FIPS to re-partition it so I can put Debian on it as well[1]. W95 defrag
> will move a lot of stuff (which it colours turquoise) to the beginning of
> the disc, but

One piece of advice: back up everything you want to keep! i used fips on
my Win98 FAT32 drive at one point, and even though it didn't appear to
wreck anything Windoze refused to start until i restored from a backup i
made (in my case it was easy, two HDs). Second piece of advice: don't use
the M$ backup to do it, if you need to use the CD to boot it makes you
reinstall windows before it'll read the thing no matter what.

[[[SNIP]]]
> A related question: the Linux+Win95 mini-HOWTO says that if you have FAT32
> you should not try using LILO. Is this info up-to-date? What about the
> business about the Linux boot partition having to start below sector 1024
> (assuming LILO can be used ).

i have no trouble using lilo with Linux+Win98's FAT32. My setup is for a
two-drive system, but it _should_ work for a single drive multi-partition
system. In my setup, the Linux drive is hda (on partition hda2), while
windows is on hdb (partition hdb1)

The Linux section of my lilo.conf is vanilla:

  image=/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hda2
label=Linux
read-only
alias=1

For quite a while, Windows refused to boot at all from lilo. i finally
solved the problem by using some obscure commands buried deep in TFM.
Probably you won't need them, but they're here for a reference anyway.

  other=/dev/hdb1
table=/dev/hdb
  # The map-drive directives make windows think it's on the primary
  # master drive instead of the primary slave. Windows would think
  # Linux was on the slave if it could see it.
map-drive = 0x80
  to = 0x81
map-drive = 0x81
  to = 0x80
label=win
alias=2

> [1] Yes I know. I should nuke W95 entirely, but I want to be sure that (a)
> I never use it and (b) all the hardware works OK in Linux.

Understandable, i did the same thing. I only use windows now when
extenuating circumstances force me (i.e. i need the windows-only printer
diagnostics). Windows was quite helpful in verifying my hardware settings,
especially the soundcard and printer. Although it turned out they were
exactly as i would have suspected from the docs.

> [2] Not sure how to find this out. 

To find if it's a FAT32? You should be able to right click on the drive
icon in windows and look in the properties. Or else, a good partitioning
program should tell you.

Re: W95 defrag

[Holger Mense]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, H C Pumphrey wrote:

> Greetings, fellow  Debian fans,
> 
> This is only a proto-debian question, I'm afraid, but I have tried to
> RTFM, honest. I'm trying to defrag the disc on a W95 laptop prior to using
> FIPS to re-partition it so I can put Debian on it as well[1]. W95 defrag
> will move a lot of stuff (which it colours turquoise) to the beginning of
> the disc, but
> 
> (a) it wants to put some things at the end and
> (b) there are some things which it colours red/white and won't move at
> all. 
Afaik defrag cannot move files, which have the one of the following
attributes: read only, system or hidden.
Therefore you have to scan you harddisk for files with these file
attributes and change them to normal file attributes (see dir /? for
that). Then try again defrag. Now all blocks should move.

 
> A related question: the Linux+Win95 mini-HOWTO says that if you have FAT32
> you should not try using LILO. Is this info up-to-date? 
I don't know... I have also Win95 and Linux on my harddisk, but I use
loadlin for loadling Linux - imho it is much easier than the configuration
of lilo.

> What about the business about the Linux boot partition having to start
> below sector 1024 (assuming LILO can be used ). 
Yes, the first cylinder of your boot partition must be in the first 1024
cylinders of your harddisk. That is because, at the time when lilo starts
a bigger number than 1024 cannot be adressed by the system.
 

HTH, Holger

-- 
Holger Mense

W95 defrag

[Kenneth Scharf]

Turn file mirror off and then defrag again.
===
Amateur Radio, when all else fails!

http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze

Debian Gnu Linux, Live Free or .


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Re: W95 defrag

[Alec Smith]

You might also take a look at a commercial package called PartitionMagic
from PowerQuest. Yeah, it costs money... I've found however that
PartitionMagic does a reliable job resizing partitions without need of
defragging. If you've got more than one machine, or expect to be fiddling
with partitions often enough, its definitely worth the cash. It might also
save you from some stupid administrator errors. :)



On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Leen Besselink wrote:

> 
> 
> On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, H C Pumphrey wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Greetings, fellow  Debian fans,
> > 
> > This is only a proto-debian question, I'm afraid, but I have tried to
> > RTFM, honest. I'm trying to defrag the disc on a W95 laptop prior to using
> > FIPS to re-partition it so I can put Debian on it as well[1]. W95 defrag
> > will move a lot of stuff (which it colours turquoise) to the beginning of
> > the disc, but
> > 
> > (a) it wants to put some things at the end and
> > (b) there are some things which it colours red/white and won't move at
> > all. 
> 
> well, I don't know if your using the latest version...
> but, if you are... (maybe earlier versions do the same)...
> fips will let you make a backup of your fat(32) AND
> very importantly it will let you know till what point the disk is used...
> (do you understand what I mean ?, hope so for you)
> 
> so, you can try running it... and it will tell you if you can make use of
> as mcuh diskspace as you want to.
> 
> also, mostly the files that defrag leaves lying around...
> are the mirror and image files... you would be able to spot those in the
> C:\ dir.
> 
> Hope this helps...
> 
> --- snip ---
> 
> 
> -- 
> Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
> 
> 

Re: W95 defrag

[Leen Besselink]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, H C Pumphrey wrote:

> 
> Greetings, fellow  Debian fans,
> 
> This is only a proto-debian question, I'm afraid, but I have tried to
> RTFM, honest. I'm trying to defrag the disc on a W95 laptop prior to using
> FIPS to re-partition it so I can put Debian on it as well[1]. W95 defrag
> will move a lot of stuff (which it colours turquoise) to the beginning of
> the disc, but
> 
> (a) it wants to put some things at the end and
> (b) there are some things which it colours red/white and won't move at
> all. 

well, I don't know if your using the latest version...
but, if you are... (maybe earlier versions do the same)...
fips will let you make a backup of your fat(32) AND
very importantly it will let you know till what point the disk is used...
(do you understand what I mean ?, hope so for you)

so, you can try running it... and it will tell you if you can make use of
as mcuh diskspace as you want to.

also, mostly the files that defrag leaves lying around...
are the mirror and image files... you would be able to spot those in the
C:\ dir.

Hope this helps...

--- snip ---