Reiser4 is great + howto

Question

I decided that I needed to try Reiser4 tonight. I followed [url=]the Wiki on it[/url] and was able to get it working just fine, but thought a few things in the Wiki could be improved.
First off, I used the -cko patchset to get Reiser4 support since I use it for desktop use anyways. In the end, it's up you what patches/patchset you want to use. I like -cko because I've found it to be really stable with a bit of a performance boost.
!! Note: !! The "CONFIG_REISER4_LARGE_KEY=y" kernel option is no longer valid as of 2.6.11, only "CONFIG_REISER4_FS=y" is available.
All of the necessary tools (libaal, reiser4progs) are in the neotuli repository:
[neotuli]
Server = ftp://pkg.neotuli.net/pub/mirror/arch/neotuli
Reiser4progs is out of date (current version is 1.0.4, not 1.0.3). Also, the current GRUB patch has been updated as of 2/20/05 and GRUB is now at version 0.96.
I decided to write a little script for copying the system directories since it takes a long time and they have to be done seperately. It's recommended to use makedev (pacman -S makedev) to create the proper static nodes in /dev. I included a comment on how to do this in the script.
#!/bin/bash
# This script is to copy the directory contents #
# from one Arch installation to another. I created #
# it to move my Arch installation to Reiser4. #
# Usage: #
# moveto [new root directory] #
cd $1
echo -n "Making /dev /sys /proc..."
mkdir dev
mkdir sys
mkdir proc
echo "done."
echo -n "Copying /etc..."
cp -a /etc .
echo "done."
echo -n "Copying /bin..."
cp -a /bin .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /var..."
cp -a /var .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /usr..."
cp -a /usr .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /lib..."
cp -a /lib .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /root..."
cp -a /root .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /tmp..."
cp -a /tmp .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /sbin..."
cp -a /sbin .
echo "done.
echo -n "Copying /opt..."
cp -a /opt .
echo "done.
echo "Now would be a good time to create the initial device"
echo "nodes in the new /dev."
echo " "
echo "To do this, run the following"
echo "commands:"
echo " "
echo "chroot $1 /bin/bash"
echo "MAKEDEV null console zero"
echo "exit"
echo " "
echo " "
echo "Make sure to edit the lilo or GRUB menu and /etc/fstab"
echo "to make the transferred installation work. :)"
Hopefully it works as well for you as it did for me. Reiser4 rocks.

Answer 1

vipernicus wrote:Reiser4 isn't all that great, you'd get better overall performance and *STABILITY* with ext3 with dir_index and journal_data turned on.  This is not a default ext3 option, you have to set it yourself.
Your first post, and you come to troll?  :evil: 
I've been using Reiser4 for well over a month now, my computer is constantly running, and I reboot to test various things for the Archie project every 2-10 days. I've never locked up, never had a crash, and, as far as I can tell, not a single glitch with Reiser4.
In case you missed all of Hans' info about Reiser4, he released it when it WAS STABLE, not as a beta.
Please, next time, read and don't post if you are just going to troll. Ext3 works for some people, and Reiser works for some people. You can go look at the benchmarks as well, then post something a bit more researched.