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#1 2010-01-11 20:05:38

vagif
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Registered: 2007-12-26
Posts: 37

Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Would i be able to easily install Arch with ext4, then upgrade to latest kernel and then change ext4 to btrfs ? Do i need to manually tinker any configuration files for that ?

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#2 2010-01-11 20:14:09

lucke
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From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

I tried that yesterday and I failed; it was failing at boot when loading the btrfs module. Perhaps it would work if you compiled btrfs into the kernel; I didn't bother.

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#3 2010-01-11 20:24:43

vagif
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Registered: 2007-12-26
Posts: 37

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

lucke wrote:

Perhaps it would work if you compiled btrfs into the kernel.

I thought btrfs is already in latest kernel. And i only need to upgrade the kernel sad

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#4 2010-01-11 20:30:26

lucke
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From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

It is in the latest kernel. As all (most?) filesystems it's compiled as a module in Arch's kernel. It works okay for non-root partitions, but for some reason the module failed to load for me when I tried to use btrfs for a root partition; hence the "maybe it'd work if compiled in, not as a module" line.

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#5 2010-01-11 20:34:44

lucke
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From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

And yeah, you should be aware that btrfs is still marked experimental. Not something you'd want to use if you want a stable system.

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#6 2010-01-11 21:29:12

perbh
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From: Republic of Texas
Registered: 2005-03-04
Posts: 765

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

I fail to see the reasoning of using such an untested fs for root.
Make a completely new filesystem (mount it on /test or something similar) and then check it out to your hearts desire.
By using it on the root filesystem (and the same - to a somewhat lesser degree - goes for ext4) you are inviting trouble.

Last edited by perbh (2010-01-11 21:29:39)

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#7 2010-01-11 21:46:29

sand_man
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From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Here's what you do (I haven't tried this yet):
Start the Arch installer, setup your partitions choosing whatever for the fs type.
Before going onto the "Select Packages" stage, go to another tty and modprobe btrfs. Then all you need is to get the PKGBUILD for btrfs-progs in AUR to mkfs.btrfs on the partition you want then go on with the installation.

edit:
Ok so in theory this should work but I ran out of space on the unionfs after downloading base-devel...I'm giving up now

edit again:
One other thing I just noticed. There is a package in AUR, mkinitcpio-btrfs. I assume that needs to be used when using btrfs as /

Last edited by sand_man (2010-01-11 21:54:33)


neutral

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#8 2010-01-11 22:37:03

Misfit138
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From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

You could always install to a partition, update, then format a second partition as btrfs and cp -a the original install to it.

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#9 2010-01-11 23:56:46

sand_man
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From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Misfit138 wrote:

You could always install to a partition, update, then format a second partition as btrfs and cp -a the original install to it.

But that's too easy tongue


neutral

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#10 2010-01-12 02:51:49

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

sand_man wrote:
Misfit138 wrote:

You could always install to a partition, update, then format a second partition as btrfs and cp -a the original install to it.

But that's too easy tongue

LOL! You're right, somehow..

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#11 2010-01-12 15:35:35

lucke
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

I've added the modules listed in the comments of mkinitcpio-btrfs to initcpio and now btrfs with compression works as a root filesystem.

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#12 2010-02-10 13:32:15

brendan
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From: UK
Registered: 2009-05-16
Posts: 130
Website

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

lucke wrote:

I've added the modules listed in the comments of mkinitcpio-btrfs to initcpio and now btrfs with compression works as a root filesystem.

I can't seem to boot from btrfs (/boot is ext2 / is btrfs) - I get:

kinit: Unable to mount root fs n device dev(8,18)
kinit: init not found!

I have added the modules : "zlib_deflate btrfs libcrc32c crc32c" in the array and added the btrfs hook in mkinitcpio and have rebuilt my image with mkinicpio -g.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've tried with UUID and direct naming (/dev/sdxx) but the kernel tells me that the drive is /dev/sdb and has sdb1 and sdb2 visible and then a fe lines later tells me that it can't mount root fs on dev(8,18)

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#13 2010-06-25 22:24:58

nutznboltz
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Registered: 2010-06-25
Posts: 1

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

brendan wrote:
lucke wrote:

I've added the modules listed in the comments of mkinitcpio-btrfs to initcpio and now btrfs with compression works as a root filesystem.

I can't seem to boot from btrfs (/boot is ext2 / is btrfs) - I get:

kinit: Unable to mount root fs n device dev(8,18)
kinit: init not found!

I have added the modules : "zlib_deflate btrfs libcrc32c crc32c" in the array and added the btrfs hook in mkinitcpio and have rebuilt my image with mkinicpio -g.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've tried with UUID and direct naming (/dev/sdxx) but the kernel tells me that the drive is /dev/sdb and has sdb1 and sdb2 visible and then a fe lines later tells me that it can't mount root fs on dev(8,18)

Did you install btrfs-progs-unstable?
Did you run btrfs-convert on the root filesystem device while it's unmounted?  (boot from installation media to do this)
Did you set the root filesystem type to btrfs in /etc/fstab?

I'm up and running on btrfs root (in a VM) now.

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#14 2010-06-26 01:17:13

demian
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From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 709

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

I switched from btrfs back to ext4 on my main system as the disk filled very quickly. When i hit something around 66% disk usage on the root partition it was suddenly full. I guess it's a known issue and has to do with the size of the meta data.
I'm still running BTRFS on my laptop though and apart from the space issue it runs great. Installation was very easy with ArchBoot though i didn't convert anything but did a new partition table.

@brendan: Maybe you will have better lcuk with the btrfs hook by extofme. You can find it in the AUR.

Last edited by demian (2010-06-26 01:18:10)


no place like /home
github

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#15 2010-07-13 02:33:21

jck
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2009-05-08
Posts: 98

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

demian, use sudo btrfs filesystem balance / to fix the 66% issue...

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#16 2010-08-02 20:21:23

murugan
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 27

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

I have successfully converted my /root filesystem from ext4 to btrfs and removed /ext2_saved/image to save space. So far I didn't find any problem. Performance is good.

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#17 2010-08-02 20:31:00

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Old thread... But still...
Can you resume from hibernate? I can't. sad Just boots normally with no more than "resume failed". Same config was ok with jfs.


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#18 2010-08-03 11:04:04

murugan
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Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 27

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

It was working with ext4. I don't use hibernate feasibility. I didn't see whether it is working or not. I will check ...

Last edited by murugan (2010-08-03 11:21:59)

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#19 2010-08-19 06:48:47

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Have you tested it? Now I get some more in everything.log:

Aug 16 07:48:00 chriseee kernel: PM: Starting manual resume from disk
Aug 16 07:48:00 chriseee kernel: PM: Resume from partition 8:6
Aug 16 07:48:00 chriseee kernel: PM: Checking hibernation image.
Aug 16 07:48:00 chriseee kernel: PM: Error -22 checking image file
Aug 16 07:48:00 chriseee kernel: PM: Resume from disk failed.

edit:
Hm... https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=807114

Last edited by Cdh (2010-08-19 06:50:49)


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#20 2010-08-19 13:31:09

murugan
Member
Registered: 2010-08-02
Posts: 27

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Yes. I tried suspend to disk but without success. I tried latest kernel-ck 2.6.35 from AUR as well. I have tried every possible options that I can understand. I found no problem when using ext4 as root.  It is btrfs problem which is still very much in development so we may have fix in next kernel 2.6.36.

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#21 2010-08-19 19:31:57

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

Ok, thanks. sad

I'd try tuxonice, but I don't want to compile an extra kernel, especially because at the moment I only have a netbook...


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#22 2010-08-26 17:18:49

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: Anyone with experience installing/using btrfs as / ?

After trying hibernation with tuxonice with the -pf kernel from here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=815890

My btrfs root partition is now unmountable:

btrfsck still does not have abilities to fix error but this is the error when it tries to check the filesystem:

parent transid verify failed on 64466944 wanted 25870 found 20155
parent transid verify failed on 64466944 wanted 25870 found 20155
parent transid verify failed on 64466944 wanted 25870 found 20155
btrfsck: disk-io.c:739: open_ctree_fd: Assertion `!(!tree_root->node)' failed.

But maybe it's not btrfs' fault because pm-hibernate with the same kernel on the jfs partition on the same machine lead to massive file loss. After reinstalling all packages with missing files (200+) it works fine again.


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