[NTLUG:Discuss] ReiserFS and the bootable /boot partition.

[kbrannen@gte.net]

Chris Cox wrote:
> Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> 
>> (Slackware 8 - new install on AMD/750 from Gateway with a Promise 
>> (SCSI) IDE
>> controller with a 40 Gig drive.)
>>
>> I remember reading somewhere that there might be some concerns having a
>> ReiserFS partition as the bootable partition...or the root partition.  Is
>> this true?
>>
> You have to have the reiserfs modules in the kernel somehow... the 
> problem is
> the ole chicken-and-egg problem.  Distributions usually have something 
> that will
> create an initial ram disk that gets preloaded to handle this (usually 
> mkinitrd).

I ran into this on a laptop where I tried to make everything a ReiserFS 
partition (well, everything except /boot).  Upon installation, the system all 
worked correctly.  When I tried to create my own kernel later, life got very 
rough, as upon boot with the new kernel, it wanted an "initrd" file, which I 
didn't understand how to make (didn't find that mkinitrd, that's nice to know. 
:-)  Anyway, my problem is avoidable by putting ReiserFS in the kernel as 
Chris suggests, and my making /boot it's own partition which is of type ext2. 
  If you want, make /boot a "ro" partition, then you can remount if you ever 
need to create a new kernel; with it being "ro", you don't have to worry about 
it not being shut down cleanly even if power goes off (which is probably why 
you want to use a journaling FS for the other partitions. :-)

Kevin