Kernel 2.6.8.1 & Reiserfs

[jimf43 0]

Anyone planning to update their kernel to 2.6.8 or 2.6.8.1 should be aware that it 'will' trash your Reiserfs volumes. I've had this happen to me, and, I know of at least one other user who had the same happen to him.

[Dapper Dan 0]

For those of us who prefer Reiserfs, that's very good to know! Thanks Jim.

[jimf43 0]

Yeah Dan, I was kinda thinking of you when I posted that.

 

Between trying the 2.6.8.1 kernel and the latest KDE I've managed to trash my system twice today . The latest KDE is very nice but very iffy to get working. First time it was running fine... Until I tried to update the kernel. Second time it just puked out when loging in. No GUI and I have no clue what's failing.... Oh well, third time's a charm .

[trondare 0]

Reiserfs is not broken in 2.6.8.1.

 

I see nothing about this in the kernel mailing lists, forums, kerneltrap, slashdot or anywhere else. I'm using 2.6.8.1-ck1 and reiserfs myself, so how can you say it's broken?

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by trondare:

Quote:

Reiserfs is not broken in 2.6.8.1.

 

I see nothing about this in the kernel mailing lists, forums, kerneltrap, slashdot or anywhere else. I'm using 2.6.8.1-ck1 and reiserfs myself, so how can you say it's broken?

 

Are you stupid, a troll, or just asking to be flamed?

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Originally posted by jimf43:

Quote:

Originally posted by trondare:

Quote:

Reiserfs is not broken in 2.6.8.1.

 

I see nothing about this in the kernel mailing lists, forums, kerneltrap, slashdot or anywhere else. I'm using 2.6.8.1-ck1 and reiserfs myself, so how can you say it's broken?

 

Are you stupid, a troll, or just asking to be flamed?

 

jimf43, I don't think it was trondare's intention to cause dissension. Maybe if he would share with us more information, we could all learn from each others experience(s) when using reiserfs and the 2.6 kernel.

[jimf43 0]

After an 8 hour session of installing and repairing mainly due to the Reiserfs issue, I am a little testy here. I don't doubt that there may be other factors and I'm happy that whats his name got Reiserfs working, but, I know that the combination trashed several other systems... I really don't need or want to hear a stupid "so how can you say it's broken?" comment. It's ruder than anything I've said.

[trondare 0]

As I said, reiserfs ISN'T broken. Please try to act like you're older

than 13 in your responses (or perhaps you are that age) if you want any kind of help. If you can prove otherwise, show me some error messages or refer to something relevant.

 

I'm not saying your system isn't broken, I'm just saying reiserfs isn't because I use it everyday on several systems using the same kernel you are referring to.

[Edited by trondare on 2004-08-17 12:53:16]

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Enough with the name calling, and it doesn't matter who started it. Let's call a truce, and begin a constructive discourse.

 

Being a big fan of reiserfs, I personally would be very interested in reading a civil dialog between the two of you. OK?

 

 

[OldSpiceAP 0]

I don't know too much about reiser fs or the 2.6.8 kernel either, but I have noted that a kernel upgrade can break compatibility on certain systems and not on others, so isn't it possible that the problem is a combination of hardware and the 2.6 kernel and not the file system at all? Or is it also possible that the problem is (2.6 Kernel)+(Hardware)+(Reiser FS)...

[danleff 0]

Good, now that we have moved on, I have been seeing some discussions on various forums about others experiencing the same thing. Let's look at the issue. I saw Jim43's post on Mempis Lover's forum. Yoper users have noted an issue with reiserfs and the new kernel also. That's the key...a new kernel, so that many users may not have posted their experiences yet. It's too new. Some have suggested the support in kernel 2.6.8 and a conflict with reiserfs 3.6 vs. version 4. There appears to be support in the kernel for version 4...I wonder if something went wrong in the process of building suport for reiserfs 4, oo if it lies in how the systems are partitioned? For example, what tool/distro was used to make the partition to start vs. the support built into the kernel itself?

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

Good, now that we have moved on, I have been seeing some discussions on various forums about others experiencing the same thing. Let's look at the issue. I saw Jim43's post on Mempis Lover's forum. Yoper users have noted an issue with reiserfs and the new kernel also. That's the key...a new kernel, so that many users may not have posted their experiences yet. It's too new. Some have suggested the support in kernel 2.6.8 and a conflict with reiserfs 3.6 vs. version 4. There appears to be support in the kernel for version 4...I wonder if something went wrong in the process of building suport for reiserfs 4, oo if it lies in how the systems are partitioned? For example, what tool/distro was used to make the partition to start vs. the support built into the kernel itself?

 

You may have the key to it there. I don't even know what version of reiserfs I'm dealing with here. That was the first thing I wanted to find out, but with the system inaccessible, I have no way of checking. I also have suspicions about Qparted, but no way to verify that either. Still, I thought it was something to be reported and warned about.

 

Qparted has been a problem with a dual boot setup before, and, I wouldn't be suprised if it's part of this issue. No matter who's technically correct Windows and Linux have a compatibility problem here. Right now all this is speculation.

 

I will investigate this all as I get a chance, but, right now I have neither the time nor the facility to do that. I believe that SimplyMepis rc5 is to be released later today and my first priority and need is to install and check that out. Also, it's pretty hard to explore anything in Linux without a working system

 

I'll also make sure that the info gets to Warren Woodford at Mepis so that it is resolved before kernel 2.6.8 gets added to the Distro.

[Dapper Dan 0]

Would anyone be willing to intall the 2.6.8 kernel on a ext2 or ext3 partition to see if it's just reiserfs?

 

Jimf43, I've only installed Mepis once. Is ext2 and ext3 available with the Mepis installation utility, or do you have to use a formatting and partioning tool like qtparted?

[danleff 0]

I think that may be the issue. Qtparted itself - I had funky things happen with it before...or qtparted and how it interacts with the kernel. This has been a known issue, since qtparted uses parted and parted has known issues with the kernel 2.6 series.

 

Mepis should allow an install with ext3, from what I remember.

 

I can try this kernel with ext3 and see what happens, but it may have to be the "Debian way" (on my test box). 8)

[Dapper Dan 0]

Jimf43, are you just going to step down a kernel and remain with reiserfs? I don't guess you have the time to retry rc4 using ext3 do you? Just wondering...

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by Dapper Dan:

Quote:

Would anyone be willing to intall the 2.6.8 kernel on a ext2 or ext3 partition to see if it's just reiserfs?

Several at MepisLovers have already installed 2.6.8 kernel on ext3. Problems have only been with reiserfs

 

Quote:

Jimf43, I've only installed Mepis once. Is ext2 and ext3 available with the Mepis installation utility, or do you have to use a formatting and partioning tool like qtparted?

ext2, ext3, & reiserfs. Mine have been set up for some time, so I just let it reformat when installing, I never set partition size with qparted. But yes, the formatting is with qparted.

 

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

I think that may be the issue. Qtparted itself - I had funky things happen with it before...or qtparted and how it interacts with the kernel. This has been a known issue, since qtparted uses parted and parted has known issues with the kernel 2.6 series.

A nice theory, but up to and including 2.6.7 kernel, Reiserfs worked flawlessly.

Quote:

Mepis should allow an install with ext3, from what I remember.

 

I can try this kernel with ext3 and see what happens, but it may have to be the "Debian way" (on my test box). 8)

SimplyMepis is pretty much unstable Debian ...

 

 

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by Dapper Dan:

Quote:

Jimf43, are you just going to step down a kernel and remain with reiserfs? I don't guess you have the time to retry rc4 using ext3 do you? Just wondering...

2.6.7 kernel, which is in the SimplyMepis rc4 release, works just great with reiserfs. I'll just stay with that till it all shakes out

[trondare 0]

Quick question, how exactly did reiserfs "trash" your volumes? Any error messages? Have you tried booting up with a rescue disk and mounting the partitions?

 

Danleff, reiser4 isn't out of beta yet, and it certainly isn't included in the kernel. Look through the changelog yourself:

 

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.8

 

2.6.8.1 is just a typo fix for NFS users, are you by any chance an NFS user jimf43?

[danleff 0]

I should have been more clear. Reiserfs 4 is in the YOPER kernel as an option (support). However, if you look at the 2.6.8 changelog, there is a lot of discussion/fixes regarding reiserfs in general.

 

Anyway, some more discussion about reiserfs 4 is noted on the Yoper forum here.

[trondare 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

I should have been more clear. Reiserfs 4 is in the YOPER kernel as an option (support). However, if you look at the 2.6.8 changelog, there is a lot of discussion/fixes regarding reiserfs in general.

 

Anyway, some more discussion about reiserfs 4 is noted on the Yoper forum here.

 

Ok, but I'm assuming jimf43 is using the vanilla kernel and not some distributions overly patched kernel. Or? You really should give us some info on your system jimf43.

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

I should have been more clear. Reiserfs 4 is in the YOPER kernel as an option (support). However, if you look at the 2.6.8 changelog, there is a lot of discussion/fixes regarding reiserfs in general.

 

Anyway, some more discussion about reiserfs 4 is noted on the Yoper forum here.

Interesting. I doubt we're dealing with Reiserfs 4. He may have added support, but, I doubt it. In all probability it's 3.x. Anyway, I've reported it so It will be resolved by the time 2.6.8.x kernel is added to the distro.

 

[OldSpiceAP 0]

I did a little expirementing. I installed yopers latest release on my old PII laptop (which it runs surprisingly well). I used a reiser fs - I don't know what reiser I was using though I know I did use cfdisk for partitioning. I tried a variety of kernels (vanilla, and from yopers own) and the only one that seemed a problem was the reiser + vanilla 2.6.8.1 kernel - yopers latest kernels had no problem - but as of my expirements they had not posted a yoperized 2.6.8.1 kernel to check. The errors I got were

"drive seek complete error sector something er another..."

over and over again on boot - is this the problem that the other people were having??

 

-So Long and Thanks for all The Fish

 

[danleff 0]

OldSpiceAP, what method did you use to set up the reiserfs partition for Yoper? Did you create it before the install with PartitionMagic or qtparted, or during the install?

 

And I assume it is Yoper 2.0 or 2.9.2 (beta)?

[oiper 0]

Just dropping by to confirm this problem with 2 of my systems.