TITLE: Reiserfs LFS VERSION: Any with lilo 21.6 or newer Author: and Tio Hiap Ho Synopsis: Reiserfs is an alternative filesystem which people are growing to like since it would out perform the ext2 filesystem in most of the cases. This hint are for those who want to use reiserfs without any ext2 filesystem in their lfs system. HINT: WHAT TO CHANGE FROM THE LFS BOOKS If you are not going to use ext2 at all, it is safe for you space monkeys out there to skip the installation of e2fsprogs, although they can/will come in quite handy. Reiserfs requires a minimum of 32 mb (for the journal) on a *writable* media, so using it on a floppy or a cdrom is out of the question. The badblocks program could also be of some use. SETTING UP THE BOOTSCRIPT Change the content of your /etc/fstab to something like below /dev/hda2 / reiserfs noatime,nodiratime,notail,defaults 0 0 /dev/hda3 /var reiserfs noatime,nodiratime,notail,defaults 0 0 /dev/hda5 /usr reiserfs noatime,nodiratime,notail,defaults 0 0 /dev/hda6 /home reiserfs noatime,nodiratime,notail,defaults 0 0 The above /etc/fstab will cause fsck to be skipped so you can remove the checkfs bootscript safely WHAT TO DO WITH THE KERNEL 1. Enable Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers 2. Enable File systems ---> Reiserfs support 3. Recompile Kernel In older kernel you might need to get the patch from www.reiserfs.org and patch it first. In the latest kernel 2.4.5 you will need to use reiserfs-umount-bug-fix-patch-for-linux-2.4.5 patch: Get the patch and put it in /usr/src patch -p0 linux-2.4.5-reiserfs-umount-fix-patch Or just use a kernel version <> 2.4.5. ;) INSTALLING Reiserfsprogs 3.x.0k.pre8 ./configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install HOW TO CONVERT FROM ext2fs to reiserfs *** QUESTION *** Is there a method of actually converting ext2 to reiser? *** ANSWER *** In short, no not without a lot of buggering around. Long answer http://www.namesys.com/change_fs.html And now a few boring facts about the different configurations possible when creating your reiser partition. There are three different types of hash (and before some clown asks, no you cant smoke it!) available when making your reiser partition : rupasov : the fastest yet MOST unstable type available, DO NO USE IT! It will, in most cases, cause you to have hash collisions, a very bad thing to happen. You will loose some/all the data that you are in the process of writing. You have been warned. ;) tea : This is the slowest of the hashes available, it does mean that you are VERY unlikely to get any hash collisions, hence no loss of data. r5 : This is a modified rupasov hash, it is the default hash and is the middle in terms of speed and relability. Being a total reiserfs user i can say that I have never had a problem with r5, where i had many when using rupasov. Before starting a new LFS that will be on reiserfs a. Install Reiserfsprogs 3.x.0k.pre8 b. Do mkreiserfs -h r5 -v 1 /dev/ (for patched 2.2.x kernel) or mkreiserfs -h r5 -v 2 /dev/ (for kernel 2.4.x series) instead of mke2fs c. And do everything else like those in the books except for the change mentioned above WHAT NEXT Now you have fully reiserfs LFS =)