Re: [MiNT] ext2 as root filesystem

[Maurits van de Kamp <maurits@bassment.demon.nl>]

On Sun, 29 Aug 1999, Martin-Eric Racine wrote:

> Now that I have successfully transformed my root filesystem into 
> an Extended-2 filesystem, I run into one problem:  e2fsck cannot
> check the partition, because it is locked while I am using it.

Haven't we already been through this? :-) The same goes for the minix
fsck, although in that case you can ignore the problem (which doesn't make
it go away though). The solution for the problem in the case of minix
is to run fsck from mint.cnf, I don't know if this will also work for ext2
but I guess it will. The problem is init.prg, this is having files open on
your root filesystem so you want to run the check before init.prg starts -
hence in mint.cnf.

> Doesn't Linux have a way to access its root partition for e2fsck
> to check it, at bootup, and then make it locked again?

Not precisely. Linux has a mounting system, which apparantly is out of
the question for MiNT. :) Linux can check filesystems without mounting
them. The root filesystem however (which must be mounted because it
contains the fsck binary) is mounted readonly, then checked, and then
mounted read/write.

> PS:  just as a precision, what I mean by root filesystem is the
>      one where /etc /bin /sbin reside, the one where bootup stuff
>      is found and where I run fsck from.

In other words, the filesystem that init has open files on. :)

Maurits.

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