[gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Stroller]

For more funroll-loopiness I contemplate using ext4 for the new system  
I'm about to install.

Anyone know of any LiveCDs that would support this?

I _think_ it should be just a case of untarring the stage 3, chrooting  
in, updating everything to latest & reboot. As long as I use 2.6.28  
when I install I don't think there should be anything that is  
incompatible with ext4??

Or would I be better off using ext3 and converting it to ext4 in a  
month or two? Are there any downsides to converting a fs from ext3 to  
ext4 in this way?

Cheers,

Stroller.

[gentoo-user] Re: Ext4 for a new installation?

[Stroller]

On 2 Feb 2009, at 04:33, Stroller wrote:
> ... As long as I use 2.6.28 when I install I don't think there  
> should be anything that is incompatible with ext4??

I should have added: I plan to use ext3 for my boot partition.

Cheers,

Stroller.

[gentoo-user] Re: Ext4 for a new installation?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Stroller wrote:
> For more funroll-loopiness I contemplate using ext4 for the new system 
> I'm about to install.
> 
> Anyone know of any LiveCDs that would support this?

Yep, SystemRescueCD supports it:

   http://www.sysresccd.org

It's even Gentoo-based, what a deal! ;)


> I _think_ it should be just a case of untarring the stage 3, chrooting 
> in, updating everything to latest & reboot. As long as I use 2.6.28 when 
> I install I don't think there should be anything that is incompatible 
> with ext4??

Just do whatever you would do with ext3.  Nothing fancy required.  Of 
course fstab needs ext4, not ext3.


> Or would I be better off using ext3 and converting it to ext4 in a month 
> or two? Are there any downsides to converting a fs from ext3 to ext4 in 
> this way?

The downsides are that you'll end up with missing ext4 features that 
will only apply to newly created files after the conversion.  I 
recommend to just be clean about it and use ext4 from the start.

Re: [gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Dale]

Stroller wrote:
> For more funroll-loopiness I contemplate using ext4 for the new system
> I'm about to install.
>
> Anyone know of any LiveCDs that would support this?
>
> I _think_ it should be just a case of untarring the stage 3, chrooting
> in, updating everything to latest & reboot. As long as I use 2.6.28
> when I install I don't think there should be anything that is
> incompatible with ext4??
>
> Or would I be better off using ext3 and converting it to ext4 in a
> month or two? Are there any downsides to converting a fs from ext3 to
> ext4 in this way?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Stroller.
>
>
>

See if Knoppix supports it yet.  If it does, you are good to go. 
Anything that is bootable, has chroot and its friends available should
work.  It doesn't have to be Gentoo specific. 

You could do like I do.  I copy everything over to another drive, then
do whatever to my main drive then copy it back.  I have done that
several times and it works pretty well. 

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Ext4 for a new installation?

[Stroller]

On 2 Feb 2009, at 04:50, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Stroller wrote:
>> For more funroll-loopiness I contemplate using ext4 for the new  
>> system I'm about to install.
>> Anyone know of any LiveCDs that would support this?
>
> Yep, SystemRescueCD supports it:
>
>  http://www.sysresccd.org
>
> It's even Gentoo-based, what a deal! ;)

Thanks! That sounds great! I know it's possible to install Gentoo  
using other LiveCDs, but have always used a Gentoo one in the past,  
just because it's been available. Hence I'd be worrying about  
incompatibilities when chrooting in, if I used a non-Gentoo one.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Dirk Heinrichs]

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Am Montag, 2. Februar 2009 06:14:17 schrieb Stroller:

> Hence I'd be worrying about  
> incompatibilities when chrooting in, if I used a non-Gentoo one.

When you're chrooted, you _are_ in a Gentoo system. It doesn't matter what 
system you used to unpack that stage tarball before.

I use GRML for doing Gentoo installs. It always worked perfectly fine. As of 
2008.11, it even has that nice grml-chroot script which handles all the /proc 
and /dev bind-mounting stuff for you. However, it doesn't have ext4 support, 
yet.

Bye...

	Dirk

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Ext4 for a new installation?

[Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto]

>> Or would I be better off using ext3 and converting it to ext4 in a month
>> or two? Are there any downsides to converting a fs from ext3 to ext4 in this
>> way?
>
> The downsides are that you'll end up with missing ext4 features that will
> only apply to newly created files after the conversion.  I recommend to just
> be clean about it and use ext4 from the start.
>
AFAIK this isn't true. You can 'convert' an ext3 filesystem to ext4
using ext4's defrag utility. See http://kernelnewbies.org/Ext4.

-- 
Software is like sex: it is better when it is free - Linus Torvalds

Re: [gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 02 Februar 2009, Stroller wrote:
> For more funroll-loopiness I contemplate using ext4 for the new system
> I'm about to install.
>
> Anyone know of any LiveCDs that would support this?
>
> I _think_ it should be just a case of untarring the stage 3, chrooting
> in, updating everything to latest & reboot. As long as I use 2.6.28
> when I install I don't think there should be anything that is
> incompatible with ext4??
>
> Or would I be better off using ext3 and converting it to ext4 in a
> month or two? Are there any downsides to converting a fs from ext3 to
> ext4 in this way?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Stroller.

the best thing would be to wait for another year before you even think about 
touching that mess.

Re: [gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Jesús Guerrero]

El Dom, 15 de Febrero de 2009, 16:59, Volker Armin Hemmann escribió:
> On Montag 02 Februar 2009, Stroller wrote:
>
> the best thing would be to wait for another year before you even think
> about touching that mess.

If by "that mess" you mean ext4, you should know that it's
just as stable as ext3.

-- 
Jesús Guerrero

Re: [gentoo-user] Ext4 for a new installation?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 15 Februar 2009, Jesús Guerrero wrote:
> El Dom, 15 de Febrero de 2009, 16:59, Volker Armin Hemmann escribió:
> > On Montag 02 Februar 2009, Stroller wrote:
> >
> > the best thing would be to wait for another year before you even think
> > about touching that mess.
>
> If by "that mess" you mean ext4, you should know that it's
> just as stable as ext3.

so ext3 is completly broken? likes to deadlock? and is mostly untested?

ext4 is new. It was just declared stable. It is not. It has to prove itself to 
be stable in the next 6 to 12 month. Earlier than that it is not stable.

But if you look at all the problems reported on lkml you should come to the 
conclusion, that both ext3 and 4 are unstable. It is just wrong to pile new 
features unto an aging platform instead of making the cut, put one into 
maintanence mode and start from a clean state. Some did it. extX never did. 
With the bad results easily visible for everybody who wants to see.