Fresh install with Reiser4

Bralkein · 2005-10-12 20:30:30

Hello everybody.

I am currently planning on reinstalling Arch Linux. I would love to say that this is purely because I want to convert to Reiser4 and have a nice, clean, freshly-installed system too, but I must guiltily confess that I also want to get rid of Windows XP because I spend far too much time there playing games. Oh, it's tragic, I know, but there you go. Deus Ex is awesome.

As you have probably guessed by now, the problem lies in the Reiser4 part. I definitely want to try out this important new filesystem on the block, and it seems like now, when I am doing a clean install, is the best time to do so. However, I don't want to have to reformat my drive as ReiserFS 3, install onto that, then convert from there to Reiser 4. I want to make a Reiser 4 partition, then install straight onto that. Is there any way to do this?

I don't think that the installer will let me use Reiser4, but I have looked at the Archie live CD, and I am guessing from the package list (it says it has libaal and reiser4progs, which suggests that it has the relevant kernel patches applied too) that it supports Reiser4, so maybe I can use Archie to create the partition, then maybe I can chroot to the install disc and install on top of the new Reiser4 partition. Hopefully from there I will be able to chroot into the new installation and install the necessary packages that I need to use Reiser4, a new kernel with the right patches, and also the modified GRUB so I can boot from it.

What do you think? Will I face many problems working this way, or does it seem like a good bet? Is there an easier way of doing things?

Thanks in advance.

Cerebral · 2005-10-12 21:42:01

Sorry, I have no idea how to install straight to Reiser4, but I had to comment:

Bralkein wrote:

Deus Ex is awesome.

Doesn't Deus Ex work in wine just fine and dandy?

T-Dawg · 2005-10-12 22:50:34

I don't know if that would go to smoothly. Even if you had reiser4 partitioned on your disk, the install cd probably wouldn't recognize it. There's a how-to in the wiki to convert from 3.6.

Bralkein · 2005-10-12 23:47:59

Cerebral wrote:

Doesn't Deus Ex work in wine just fine and dandy?

Shh! I know that, but I'm trying to forget, because I want to give games up! They interfere with my degree :oops: Actually it's not just Deus Ex, it's many, and even if I can play Deus Ex then I must get bored of it eventually... no game is THAT good

Penguin: Cheers for the reply. You are right, it is possible to switch to Reiser4 from another filesystem when you have Arch installed already, but it looks like a bit of a PITA, and I think it would be less hassle if I could install Arch straight onto a ready-made Reiser4 partition, or if not, it would certainly be an interesting experiment . I have been thinking about this a bit since my initial post, and here is what I reckon:

The Arch installation disc by itself cannot handle Reiser4 partitions, as you said, because it has neither the correct patches on its kernel, nor does it have the correct user-space software. I think that Archie does though. If I create and mount the Reiser4 partition under Archie, then chroot into the installation disc, then the installation disc's software would be running under Archie's Reiser4-capable kernel. Hopefully, this would allow me to skip partitioning and creating filesystems in the install program, so I can just tell it to write to the partition in question. It might require me to fool the installer in a couple of places, but I suspect that it is possible to do so, because all that has to happen is that the Reiser4 partition needs to be mounted at the location the installer wants to write to. Once that is taken care of, all the files should be written as usual.

Getting the installer to install Arch should be the tricky part, but if I can do that then the rest should be easy - just a case of installing a Reiser4-capable kernel, libaal, reiser4progs and a patched GRUB. It would be useful to know if anybody else had ever gone to any lengths to do what I'm trying to do now though, so that they could tell me if I am making any incorrect assumptions or point out any pitfalls along the way.

If I am actually the first one to try this, then maybe I will write a HOWTO if I manage to complete my mission!

Gullible Jones · 2005-10-13 00:09:53

I think Archie can handle installing on Reiser4.

(But if Reiser4 screws you over, don't complain too much... There's a reason it ain't supported by the mainline kernel yet.)

tomk · 2005-10-13 09:15:32

Bralkein wrote:

I must guiltily confess that I also want to get rid of Windows XP

Guilt? What guilt? Something to be proud of, if you ask me.

Would an Archie hard-disk install do it for you?

SlackwareInAZ · 2005-10-13 18:55:00

Brelkin,

Been using reiser4 for some time on Slackware 10.2 current, Gentoo (Jackass 2005.1) and Arch 0.7.

There are two ways to do this, as I detailed in this reply in a Slackware forum on linuxquestions.org:

Although the process to get Arch on Reiser4 is not particularly difficult, it is not a one step process either.

I am (and have been using Reiser4 for about four months now as it matures) running Reiser4 on a new Slackware 10.2 install as well as on Arch 0.7 that is kept updated daily. Both use the same .config file on a 2.6.12.5 kernel.

Here are the steps I would recommend along with an alternate approach.

1. For arch, pacman -S reiser4progs. This will install libaal & reiser4progs-1.0.5-2

2. Kernel compiling. I use 2.6.12.5 kernel source patched with ftp://ftp.namesys.com/pub/reiser4-f...6.12-3.patch.gz

If you haven't compiled a kernel for Reiser4, yet, make sure you patch the kernel source first, then remember under crytographic api, select the "deflate compression algorithim" option, otherwise under filesystems, the "Reiser4 (experimental)" option will not be visible. Make sure you compile both these options into the kernel, not as modules, so that you won't need an initrd. Compile and install the new 2.6.12.5 kernel and modules with make && make modules_install, and if you're using lilo, make install as the last step, or manually copy the system.map and /usr/src/linux-2.6.12.5/arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot/vmlinuz or whatever you want to name the kernel.

Part2

Now you must copy your Reiser4 capable system to another partition with cp -a -p. Since I have Arch installed on another partition, I boot into it, mount the Reiser4 ready partition, cd into it's /, so all the main directories such as bin boot dev etc home --- are visible. Then use the cp -a -p bin boot dev etc home ----- to another partition.

Or if Arch is your only Linux OS, download the Zenwalk 1.2 iso (Note: version 1.3 will be out soon and will have the latest v1.0.5-2 reiser4progs one of which is mkfs.reiser4 which is used to format the partition to the newest version of Reiser4. This will be your only way to format your Arch partition to Reiser4 if you don't have a secondary linux system. The disadvantage to this, although compatibility now exists, at the time Zenwalk 1.2 was released in August 2005, reiser4 progs were at 1.0.4, so that's what the cd uses, so having a secondary os that has reiser4progs-1.0.5 is preferrable.

But either way, format your desired Arch partition (not mounted at this point, of course) with mkfs.reiser4. Then mount the partition and copy your data back with cp -a -p.

Chroot into this partition, and lilo -v to make it bootable, then exit from the chrooted partition, unmount, then reboot into your new Reiser4 partition and enjoy.

Final note: make sure your /etc/fstab is changed to reiser4 before you reboot or your restart will halt with a filesystem error.

Here is my /etc/fstab using the 2.6.12.5 reiser4 setup:

/dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 / reiser4 defaults,noatime 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0

Note: if you want to use 2.6.13.x let me know and I'll walk you through the steps of patching a vanilla kernel if you don't want to use kernel26mm.

Gary

Mr Green · 2005-10-13 18:58:22

why not use archck :?:

O & reiser4 how to in wiki

nightfrost · 2005-10-13 19:06:34

I don't know if this helps, but this is what I've always done.

As it happens, the first time I installed Arch for real, I fixed all the config files and installed a few essential packages for my system, and then I created a tarball of the entire system. The file is rather small, 70-80M, IIRC, and has base+some more.

After that, whenever I've been in need of a new installation, I've always booted with the latest Kanotix liveCD and just untarred the the backup onto a reiser4-partition. Real fast installation.

Bralkein · 2005-10-20 17:33:34

Thanks to everyone who suggested ways to do it, for I am now posting from my new Reiser4 installation of Arch, and all seems to be going smoothly!

It took a long time, but only because I had a lot of grief with Memorex's shitty CD-Rs and CD-RWs. I would never recommend them for anything other than coasters and frisbees, because they suck. I used a nice and small but effective bootable distro CD called R.I.P., and the Arch installation CD. It turns out that it is quite simple to trick the Arch installer into installing onto a Reiser4 partition you have created and mounted yourself, without even having to boot the Installation CD. After you have installed the base system, it is possible to chroot into it and add the necessary components for Reiser4 support. I'm not going to bother explaining the precise details here, because it will take a while and I'm not sure anybody cares, but if I am wrong and you DO care, then ask and I will tell you.

One thing I did discover during the process is that Archie does not support USB removeable storage, or at least it did not create nodes in /dev for my Maxtor USB HD, or for my iRiver H320, which are both generic USB storage. This is strange, because it certainly has the kernel modules (mod_scsi and usb_storage) needed for the task. Maybe I will submit a bug report...

At any rate, hurray for Arch Linux on Reiser4!

jinn · 2005-12-17 10:38:55

Well not to bust your balls, but grub doesnt support reiser4... You probably have to patch it if you want it to work.. or use lilo.. but I damned hate lilo.. and havent successfully patched grub either.

Anyone with grub patched successfully please write how you did it..

Mr Green · 2005-12-17 10:41:53

Reiser4FShowto?

Arch Linux

#1 2005-10-12 20:30:30

Fresh install with Reiser4

#2 2005-10-12 21:42:01

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#3 2005-10-12 22:50:34

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#4 2005-10-12 23:47:59

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#5 2005-10-13 00:09:53

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#6 2005-10-13 09:15:32

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#7 2005-10-13 18:55:00

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#8 2005-10-13 18:58:22

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#9 2005-10-13 19:06:34

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#10 2005-10-20 17:33:34

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#11 2005-12-17 10:38:55

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

#12 2005-12-17 10:41:53

Re: Fresh install with Reiser4

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