recommending reiserfs?

[Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha]

On Sat, May 08, 2004 at 06:44:20PM -0500, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> John Thompson wrote:
> 
> >What do you think checks for the "dirty" bit?  That's right; "fsck." If
> >it find the dirty bit set, it calls the filesystem-appropriate utility
> >(eg "fsck.ext3" or whatever) to check and fix any problems.  When fsck
> >finds the dirty bit set on an xfs filesystem, it calls "fsck.xfs" which
> >simply returns a "successful" signal back to fsck, which then moves on
> >to the next filesystem. 
> >
> Can you prove that the system uses fsck to check the filesystem's dirty 
> flag? I can't. I see where it gets called if the filesystem is dirty, 
> but not before that.

The last field in /etc/fstab says if a filesystem is to be checked and in
what order.

When booting, /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit calls fsck -A, that parses the
/etc/fstab field and calls for each filesystem to be checked
/sbin/fsck.filesystem_type.

That fsck.filesystem_type is the one that checks the dirty bit on the
filesystem (for fsck.* that do something usefull, like fsck.ext2/3, vfat
and minix). For fsck.ext3, a check is made for a journal to replay, and
if the replay is successful the filesystem is considered clean.

A reason you don't see where fsck gets called if the system isn't dirty,
could be that you're not noticing the message saying it's clean. :)

Regards,
Luciano Rocha

-- 
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.