Filesystem and Reiserfs4 Question

Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

I want to know how filesystem drivers work in relation to formatting a filesystem and after the format, using the filesystem... a difference?

I'm thinking about trying reiserfs v4 on some partitions as they say it's stable "enough" now. They are still working on the code for reiser4 and you need to have a running kernel with reiser4 support to be able to format with the filesystem.. so.. will I need to reformat once the code is better, to actually get a more stable filesystem?

Reason I'm asking is I want to know if it's good enough to format it once now and fill it up.. or if I'll have to reformat it later to actually make it up to date..

Some of you may find my question silly, but I hope you can answer me none the same.

YopWongSapn · l33t Joined: 26 Jan 2004 Posts: 627

spb · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 9:52 pm Post subject:

AFAIK you don't need the Reiser4 driver in your kernel to make a reiser4 filesystem; you just need reiser4progs installed (they're in Portage).

As for needing to reformat, iirc the actual filesystem has pretty much stabilised, so any filesystem you create now should continue to work. All that's needed is a few bugfixes in the driver. Last time I used it it worked perfectly other than the occasional kernel oops when unmounting it.

So yes, go ahead and make a reiser4 partition, but I wouldn't put anything too important on it just yet. At least, nothing that can't be restored by reinstalling, so keep it away from /etc and /home.

Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

Truly? I'll have to give that a go then

emerging reiser4progs as I write now.
So in essence it's just the driver that is unstable? not the filesystem per se?

spb · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:17 pm Post subject:

Pretty much that, yes. If you read some of the love-sources threads in Other Things Gentoo there are people who have been using reiser4 for a while now. With any luck it should be in -mm not too long from now, when they've got the major bugs sorted out.

Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

Yes, I read that they wanted to send Andrew a new patch after they had fixed the last few bugs. Now everything would be nice if only reiser4progs would compile

steel300 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 1155

I can not believe what I'm hearing. In order to use reiser4 you need a kernel that supports it. It's not as simple as emerge reiser4progs. Can use use ext3 without compiling ext3 support into the kernel? How many threads have you seen where people didn't compile the proper fs support into there kernel and it won't boot? That should be a dead give away that you need a kernel with said filesystem support.
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Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

Personally, I have never said I believed otherwise.

However, if I was to understand correctly, a partition could be formatted with reiser4 with just the tools. My aim is to try it out, of course with kernel support for it.

VolcomPimp · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 11:28 pm Post subject:

steel: Once reiser 4 is availible in love-sources, do you need to reformat
your existing reiser v3 partition or what?

Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

VolcomPimp: Yes. You will need to reformat your reiser v3 if you want it to change to reiser v4.

spb · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 10:43 am Post subject:

Aonoa · Guru Joined: 23 May 2002 Posts: 589

You never confused me.

I'm currently trying to get a computer up and running with reiser4 on the root system, except for boot though.