Converting the / partition to Reiserfs on Slack 8

[MaGneTTo]

I don't know if there's another way of doing it, but, where's my idea... and it worked just fine for me, it might work just fine for you to... When installing Slack 8, you have the chance of selecting ReiserFS when doing the "cfdisk" stuff, but, there've been lots of updates on it, so, i thought it would be better to just install it as a ext2 partition and then convert it... Where's the problem, because i couldn't find a way of mounting different directories in diferent partitions on Slack 8 install, otherwise i would do like this :

/dev/hda1 - /
/dev/hda2 - /var
/dev/hda3 - /user... and so on...
but i had to install everything on /dev/hda1, because you can make lots of partitions with cfdisk, but you won't be able to install different mount points on it... OK... let's do it then...

Just grab a friends HD, which has linux of course... Download 2.4.18 and patch 2.4.19-pre4... the latest back then... untar the kernel, patch it, and compile it with ReiserFS support, and don't do it as a module, compile it right into the kernel...
Do what has to be done when compiling a kernel, reboot it and see if it worked... it will work because you know what you're doing... OK..
put your HD as a slave HD on your friend's machine, just do a fdisk -l to see the details of the new devices...
mount it on your friends hd... so you will have full access to it... then, backup it all up... with tar... like this..

tar -cWps --atime-preserve -f /*location where you want to put the backup file*/ /*mount point of your hd, just put an '*' on it*/

this will back your data up just the way it is... CHECK IF THERE'S NOTHING MOUNT ON YOUR HD... otherwise it will be backup to... and there'll be a big mess when you untar it...

go to www.reiserfs.org (http://www.reiserfs.org) and grab the latest tools they have there... install it... just ./configure, make, make install.. the usual...

DON'T FORGET THAT YOUR FRIENDS HD MUST HAVE REISERFS SUPPORT, AND SO DOES YOURS, otherwise, you won't be able to boot it later..

just give a mkreiserfs /dev//*the device that points to your HD*/

it will be formated, then mount it as mount -t auto /dev//*you know what*/ /*mount point*/

take a look at /etc/mtab and see if it have been mounted as a reiserfs partition... if it has... congratulations... it's working... now, just cd into your HD, through the mount point... untar the file inside it... reboot, and done... you are now on a ReiserFS linux... if you need any help, just ask..

I wouldn't let it pass... my 69th post... :D :D :D

[ 23 March 2002: Message edited by: MaGneTTo ]

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Did the reply I gave here (http://www.linuxnewbie.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=027174) give you any ideas? If you had the ability to make a new partition on your drive, it'd be a lot easier...

[ 26 March 2002: Message edited by: Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379 ]

[MaGneTTo]

I know, i read it all point by point the first time you posted it... but, i didn't have any chance of making a new partition on my drive, so i used another HD, which made the work a lot easier, since my HD was the slave one, and wasn't booting the system... but thanks anyway for both of your replies.

[Piix4]

This might be obvious or I might be missing the thrust of your post, but if you write the 2.4.5 image provided with slackware you should be fine 'boggle or am I just being stupid'?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by Piix4:
<STRONG>This might be obvious or I might be missing the thrust of your post, but if you write the 2.4.5 image provided with slackware you should be fine 'boggle or am I just being stupid'?</STRONG>

That's true, but say, for instance, he wasn't running Slack, but instead he used RedHat. To my knowledge, Even RH7.2 only lets you format your partitions as ext2 or ext3, so you would have to convert the partition then...

Unless, of course, you format the partition reiserfs before you install RH. I think it would install onto it...