install corrupts existing ext3 multi-boot partitions

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sun, 2004-10-24 at 20:56 -0700, John Reiser wrote:
> The cause might be that install causes all existing ext3 filesystems
> get the new attribute ext_attr, and older kernels have bugs interpreting
> this.  This seems to happen even for filesystems that were omitted from
> the mount list when DiskDruid was run during install of FC3test3.  "Auto
> management" of /media/idediskN might be a reason  why.
> 

There is one caveat to be aware of: ext3 provides compatibility in one
direction; new features can and are getting added that aren't readable
by older kernels. Yet being able to read and write to older partitions
is a very important goal for ext3.

EXT3 is actively developed and enhanced still, things like online
resize, extended attributes, htree, extends etc are getting added over
time. Some of those are entirely transparent, others have compatibility
issues, there are several levels:
1) Entirely compatible (no special feature flag)
2) Read only compatible only 
3) R/W compatible but clear the feature flags not understood (eg htree)
4) Compatible except on a fsck level
5) Entirely incompatible

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