[arch-dev-public] current e2fsprogs incompatible with grub

[Dan McGee]

On Feb 9, 2008 9:06 AM, Tobias Powalowski <t.powa at gmx.de> wrote:
> Am Samstag, 9. Februar 2008 schrieb Dan McGee:
>
> > On Feb 9, 2008 3:30 AM, Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org> wrote:
> > > Xavier schrieb:
> > > > That's funny, my first feeling when I read about that issue was :
> > > > Why the hell did those developers put such stupid limitation? :)
> > > > (or: did not remove)
> > > >
> > > > Well, my first result on google looks interesting :
> > > > http://people.debian.org/~terpstra/message/20080130.140155.866d3ad1.en.
> > > >html
> > > >
> > > > There is a patch attached, and the following information :
> > > >> Even though I understand that grub(-legacy) is in feature freeze
> > > >> (grub2 does already support booting from ext3 partitions with 256 byte
> > > >> inodes), I
> > > >> personally would prefer an update to grub 0.97, given that this issue
> > > >> leaves the (newly installed/ moved) system unbootable without any
> > > >> chance for manual interaction (grub neither installs and dies without
> > > >> any message)
> > > >> and that the patch seems to be of reasonable size, while grub2 doesn't
> > > >> seem
> > > >> to be ready for mass deployment.
> > >
> > > I checked the patch into CVS. If it is okay, I can rebuild grub with
> > > this patch and check it into testing. Opinions?
> >
> > This personally seems like the better fix to the issue, rather than
> > blame the e2fsprogs developers for changing a default that has been
> > supported by kernel filesystem drivers since 2.6.10.
> >
> > If we can get sufficient testing on this thing, I'd say go for it and
> > revert any changing or patching you did to e2fsprogs, as grub being in
> > a feature freeze is not their fault. To me that is like some
> > out-of-tree driver telling Linus "No, you can't release a new kernel
> > yet! We aren't ready!". That would really fly.
> >
> > -Dan
>
> I would say patch grub and let the patch stay in e2fsprogs, it's the default
> anyway according to their manpage.

Ahh, I did forget that little issue too.

If anyone is more informed on FS issues than I, what is the benefit of
larger inode sizes?

-Dan