[CLUE-Tech] Converting ext2 to ext3

[Timothy C. Klein]

* Michael James Robbert (mrobbert at mines.edu) wrote:
> I'll bet if you do an lsmod you'll find that it is just a module and not
> compiled into the kernel. Using ext3 and booting ext3 are two different
> issues. All of my machines(save one or two) are stock RedHat and luckily
> RedHat is good enough to create and use an initrd that allows booting
> from ext3, but when I went to build my own kernel awhile ago and left
> ext3 as a module, but didn't make an initrd I couldn't boot. That is why
> I mention it.

That doesn't really make sense.  If the module is missing, you can't use
the journalling features of ext3.  But ext3 *is* completely backwards
compatible.  I boot my ext3 partitions as ext2 from time to time, with
no ext3 kernel support.  The kernel is an old 2.2 that has no concept of ext3
whatsoever.  But it boots just fine, and is treated as ext2.  I believe
the only on-disk difference between 2 and 3 is the journal, and an old
ext2 kernel will just ignore the journal, with no ill-effects.  All of
the journaling magic must live in the kernel driver.

I suspect you might have been having some kind of additional problem.
The backwards compat.  is the main selling point of ext3 -- the other
journaling fs are supposedly better, but a harder upgrade path.

Tim
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