[arch-general] BTRFS USB key fails to boot

[Δημήτρης Ζέρβας]

hm... I curently use ext2 and I have installation in a partition of my sd
card. wich fs would be better than ext2, given that I need quich r/w but as
less writes as possible?
On Jul 31, 2012 3:18 AM, "Leonardo Dagnino" <leodag.sch at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I don't think it will "destroy" the flash... As it is made of NAND
> flash, I suppose that it reacts pretty much like an SSD. Anyway, it should
> take a considerable time until it wears out, and if you use it only to
> install an OS, it won't have any writes, what means that it shouldn't wear
> out for some years (or at least I hope so)
> For what I remember, btrfs uses a pretty big amount of space, what means
> more writes.
>
> Leonardo Dagnino
>
> Obs.: NAND flash only has a limited amount of erases/writes, not reads.
>
>
> 2012/7/30 Zhengyu Xu <xzy3186 at gmail.com>
>
> > I've no idea on how btrfs performs with a flash disk actually. My btrfs
> > partition just locates on a normal hdd so I have never thought about it
> :-)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Zhengyu Xu
> >
> > On 2012-7-31, at 8:27, Δημήτρης Ζέρβας<01ttouch at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > is it actually safe to format an usb flash to btrfs? won't it destroy
> the
> > > flash because of the read/writes?
> > > On Jul 31, 2012 2:20 AM, "Zhengyu Xu" <xzy3186 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Mon, 2012-07-30 at 17:36 -0400, Kyle wrote:
> > >>> Trying to install Arch on a USB key, I am having trouble getting a
> > >> bootable system. I created a basic BTRFS filesystem and mounted it
> with
> > SSD
> > >> optimizations and compression. I didn't create any subvolumes or
> > anything
> > >> else that is said to be problematic when booting to a BTRFS
> filesystem.
> > >> From that point, I followed the installation guide for a normal
> install.
> > >> However, after reading the documentation for GRUB and Syslinux, my
> newly
> > >> created install doesn't boot. I looked at the wiki entry for
> installing
> > to
> > >> a USB key, but it is still written for AIF and grub-legacy. However,
> the
> > >> main difference I can find doesn't seem to apply, because although it
> > >> mentions that the USB key where grub-legacy is installed is always
> > hd0,0,
> > >> grub2 is supposed to look for the UUID of the disk, which matches
> > correctly
> > >> in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. I also tried setting up this install to boot
> > using
> > >> Syslinux, but both bootloaders just drop me into some kind of shell
> and
> > >> refuse to boot. Unfortunately, since I am
> > >>> visually impaired and use speech to install and use Arch, I am unable
> > to
> > >> see whether I am in a "normal shell" or a rescue shell, or even what
> > kind
> > >> of issue the bootloaders are having that keeps them from finding a
> > kernel.
> > >> Should I be using a different filesystem other than BTRFS, even though
> > both
> > >> bootloaders are said to support it? Should I not be using compression
> > on my
> > >> filesystem? Could this be a problem that is entirely unrelated to the
> > >> filesystem I'm using? Any help is greatly appreciated.
> > >>> ~Kyle
> > >>
> > >> Did you add usb and btrfs to the hooks array in your mkinitcpio.conf?
> > >>
> > >> Regards,
> > >> Zhengyu Xu
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
>