XFS root on Fedora 8AXP install ???

[John Grzesiak]

          The way x86 does it is to boot off an EXT2 (/boot) and to 
then let the
INITRD do the mount magic... This allows boot on any filesystem that can be
modularized.

          All that is required is XFS either in the kernel or a loadable module
in the INITRD...

          This should work in AXP as well as any other platform since it's
independent of GRUB or LILO or ABOOT...

          I have discovered that the XFS loadable module won't load at 
present..
which is one problem... I am looking for more issues, but, that one is a
definate fix problem.

          I have a basic EXT3 system running... I will recompile the kernel and
see if I can't get the XFS module fixed. I will go on from there.

          I still love playing with my Alpha's....


-- 



John Grzesiak
---- P.S.T.N. 603.798.4028 ----



Quoting "Robert M. Riches Jr." <rm.riches at verizon.net>:

>> Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 18:10:19 -0400
>> From: John Grzesiak <johng at pcrd.net>
>>
>>      I am a fan of XFS... I have been using it as a root filesystem for most
>> of my other Linux platforms for a while now. I tried to add it to the
>> command line as I used to for Fedora 4,5,6 in x86 platform, but, it's
>> unavailable in the text mode installer... (only thing available at present
>> on my AS-4100 .. my Matrox and S3Virge cards won't start X...). Has it been
>> intentionally removed for AXP or is this an oversight ???
>>
>>      XFS is what I want.. I have worked with JFS and REISERFS too, but, have
>> too many problems. I managed to get XFS to work really well with most
>> stuff...  (And I have the secret that gets the delete speed up to snuff
>> too!)...
>>
>>      BTW I was able to use XFS as data partitions all day long in
>> AC3... very stable for what it's worth...
>>
>>      Also, I don't see the LVM selection in the text menu... I sort of like
>> to use the logical volume with software RAID... It's the easiest way to have
>> your SWAP mirrored... What could be up there  ??
>
> I don't know whether Alpha can boot from XFS, but there may
> be a way to format the filesystem.  At least when I did my
> last installation on Alpha (around 2002-2003), one of the
> text consoles (I forget whether it's Alt-Ctrl-F1,
> Alt-Ctrl-F2, or another one) was a root shell.  On one of my
> first installations, after Disk Druid had made a terrible
> mess of my partitions, I used the root shell to redo the
> partitioning, correctly this time.
>
> As soon as the installer boots up, switch to that text
> console and do your partitioning and formatting there from
> the command line.  Then, if you're lucky, the installer will
> let you use the existing partitions and filesystems.
> There's a slim chance it might even recognize and reformat
> (empty out) an existing XFS filesystem.
>
> One suggestion: Especially for non-X86 architectures that
> may not have live-CD distributions available, it can be
> helpful to have multiple Linux installation areas on one
> machine.  That way, if something breaks fatally in one
> installation, you can boot up the other installation, mount
> the broken one's filesystems, and manually fix things up.
>
> (I miss my Alpha...)
>
> Robert Riches
> rm.riches at verizon.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> axp-list mailing list
> axp-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/axp-list
>