Charles Collette <collette@no-spam-xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Joe,

> First of all, I wouldn't make partitions on this drive. If you install
> Slackware/s root (/) on it and will use it also for data this is what
> I would do;

> partition 1 : / - size about 6 GB
> partition 2 : for data
> partition 3 : swap

> The data part will be big, very big. But on top of the data partition
> install lvm (logical volume manager). That way you can make as much
> logical volumes as needed and can shrink or enlarge them.

> As for the file system, the root partition ext3. That way you can
> always boot the machine and can always access the root. The data part:
> reiserfs. Because it is very stable (I use it on very big lvm - raid
> arrays for several years already and never have seen any problems),
> and fast.
> And, as far as I know, its the only file system that allows you to
> shrink or expand logical volumes.

> greatings,
> Charles Collette

Charles,

This is a neato idea. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

-Joe

Douglas Mayne <doug@slack-1a.localnet> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:48:25 +0000, Joseph H. Rosevear wrote:

[snip]

> I usually use XFS. The wikipedia has some interesting information
> comparing filesystems:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems

Interesting.

[snip]

> Going OT:

What is "OT"?

> Portable drives are subject to being dropped, knocked off the shelf, etc.
> Most of these drives have a receptable for a cable lock, and that could be
> used as an anchor point to keep the drive in place.

Good idea. I haven't dropped one yet!

> --
> Douglas Mayne

-Joe

Joseph H. Rosevear <joe@airlink9.hopto.org> wrote:

[snip]

> -Joe

To all who replied,

Thanks for your interesting suggestions. I'm better educated now, but
I'm going to stick to ext2 for the time being. However, if a need
confronts us, I'm now able to suggest an alternative to ext2.

-Joe

buck wrote:

>>> ... (I need a FS where file size can exceed 4Gb in order to write
>>> DVDs).
>>
>>You didn't think to just try this on ext2/ext3?
>
> It is mounted as a Samba share by the computer doing the DVD write, so
> even though the underlying ext3 is OK, the Samba share iss not. Did
> you actually READ the info at the posted URL?

I did. Where does it say that the file system you refer to above
("where file size can exceed 4Gb in order to write DVDs") has anything
to do with a Samba share?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Systems and Network analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On 2007-06-22, Joseph H. Rosevear <joe@airlink9.hopto.org> wrote:

> Sounds like ext3 is popular around here. But it is just ext2 plus
> journaling, right? So I'm debating. On the one hand journaling may
> help with data recovery. On the other hand, I'm familiar with ext2.

If you are familiar with ext2, then there is little reason not to
use ext3. You can even mount an ext3 filesystem as ext2 (though of
course the journalling will not be done), and all the e2* tools
work with ext3 filesystems. There are two possible reasons to
use ext2 instead: 1) you really don't care about journalling,
say on a filesystem like /tmp, and the overhead would be wasted;
2) you're really really short on disk space, and you need the
space used by the journal for real data. If neither of these
situations apply to you, don't debate, use ext3.

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information

On 2007-06-22, Joseph H. Rosevear <joe@airlink9.hopto.org> wrote:

> Thanks for your interesting suggestions. I'm better educated now, but
> I'm going to stick to ext2 for the time being. However, if a need
> confronts us, I'm now able to suggest an alternative to ext2.

I changed to ext3 because the occasional power blackout would too
often corrupt ext2, requiring me to fsck it and not always
successfully. Never had that problem again after changing to ext3.

nb

Douglas Mayne <doug@slack-1a.localnet> wrote:
> I have had success writing single large files to DVDs by using k3b. Just
> check the box, "udf," on the filesystem tab.

There is a problem with that, as the "udf" driver had problems (like
it could corrupt the whole kernel), since the 2.6.17.<something> kernel
the udf filesystem has been restricted to a maximum of 1 GB files ONLY!
As the test is not done during READing, you can still read/access larger
files, but you cannot create a file > 1 GB on an UDF fs anymore, with
those newer kernels.
--
************************************************** ******************
** Eef Hartman, Delft University of Technology, dept. EWI/TW **
** e-mail: E.J.M.Hartman@math.tudelft.nl, fax: +31-15-278 7295 **
** snail-mail: P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands **
************************************************** ******************

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:13:54 +0000 (UTC), Sylvain Robitaille
<syl@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:

>buck wrote:
>
>>>> ... (I need a FS where file size can exceed 4Gb in order to write
>>>> DVDs).
>>>
>>>You didn't think to just try this on ext2/ext3?
>>
>> It is mounted as a Samba share by the computer doing the DVD write, so
>> even though the underlying ext3 is OK, the Samba share iss not. Did
>> you actually READ the info at the posted URL?
>
>I did. Where does it say that the file system you refer to above
>("where file size can exceed 4Gb in order to write DVDs") has anything
>to do with a Samba share?

First, it says ext2 & ext3 can have file sizes of 16Gb. Therefore, my
issue cannot be due my ext3 fs.

Second, Samba (although it isn't easy to find) uses FAT32 even though
it can advertize NTFS or FAT or Samba as the FS. wikipedia says FAT32
is limited to 4Gb.

So my Samba share cannot be used to write a ~4.6Gb DVD image. Now I
must decide whether or not to move the DVD writer to the Slackware
machine...

Probably because I'm too stupid, I have problems w/CIFS, so that won't
be part of my analysis.
--
buck

notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
> On 2007-06-22, Joseph H. Rosevear <joe@airlink9.hopto.org> wrote:

> > Thanks for your interesting suggestions. I'm better educated now, but
> > I'm going to stick to ext2 for the time being. However, if a need
> > confronts us, I'm now able to suggest an alternative to ext2.

> I changed to ext3 because the occasional power blackout would too
> often corrupt ext2, requiring me to fsck it and not always
> successfully. Never had that problem again after changing to ext3.

> nb

!Bob,

Can I convert an ext2 system to ext3?

I read the section in the Filesystems-HOWTO on journaling. I didn't
understand what it was good for. The HOWTO says that journaling file
systems are slower than other file systems, but more reliable. The
HOWTO explains why.

So, I take back what I said. I'll give it a try.

The HOWTO also said that

This approach does not require a full scan of the file system,
yielding very quick filesystem check time on large file systems,
generally a few seconds for a multiple-gigabyte file system.

Does that mean the regular check that occurs every N mounts will be
faster? That would be cool. Especially since I have large partitions.

-Joe

Joseph H. Rosevear wrote:
> notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
>> On 2007-06-22, Joseph H. Rosevear <joe@airlink9.hopto.org> wrote:
>
>>> Thanks for your interesting suggestions. I'm better educated now, but
>>> I'm going to stick to ext2 for the time being. However, if a need
>>> confronts us, I'm now able to suggest an alternative to ext2.
>
>> I changed to ext3 because the occasional power blackout would too
>> often corrupt ext2, requiring me to fsck it and not always
>> successfully. Never had that problem again after changing to ext3.
>
> Can I convert an ext2 system to ext3?

Yes. An ext3 filesystem is simply an ext2 filesystem with some
"invisible" files that store the journaling information.

/sbin/tune2fs -j /dev/hdx

Then change the filesystem type in /etc/fstab from ext2 to ext3. Its
recommended to unmount (and backup?) the partition before running these
commands; if you don't, a ".journal" file will be visible until the next
time e2fsck runs.

> I read the section in the Filesystems-HOWTO on journaling. I didn't
> understand what it was good for. The HOWTO says that journaling file
> systems are slower than other file systems, but more reliable. The
> HOWTO explains why.
>
> So, I take back what I said. I'll give it a try.
>
> The HOWTO also said that
>
> This approach does not require a full scan of the file system,
> yielding very quick filesystem check time on large file systems,
> generally a few seconds for a multiple-gigabyte file system.
>
> Does that mean the regular check that occurs every N mounts will be
> faster? That would be cool. Especially since I have large partitions.

Many journaling filesystems do a sanity check every time a partition is
mounted, thus eliminating the need for monthly checks. That and the
improved data recovery switched me to reiserfs back in the day.

- Daniel

P.S. I *have* experienced a data corruption issue on a reiserfs
partition that was experienced several years of Slackware upgrades and
numerous power outages. By the time I noticed this, a large number of
files were unreadable; the filename was there, but the fs complained
about corruption. Possibly due to klutziness, my attempts to recover
these files resulted in over 2000 files with names like 604_641,
604_642, ... in lost+found. No idea what would have happened with
another journaling system (good idea of how this could have trashed a
non-journaling fs, though).

The point? Journaling is good, but it isn't a magic bullet.