Note: This is legacy information as DebianLinux (and most other Linux distributions) ship by default with EXT3 support. It may still be useful to people trying to upgrade old boxes so I've left it here. -- Adam Shand
EXT3 is the journaled version of the old-faithful EXT2, as I'm sure you've all heard by now. For those who want to switch to EXT3 here's a VERY-MINI-HOWTO
See also: DebianLinux, UsingApt, DebianKernelDpkg
- Get kernel 2.4.14 (which has the AC additions)
- Build the kernel with EXT3, not EXT2 (just in case the VFS tries to mount / with EXT2 first)
- Get the latest e2fsprogs package
Run tune2fs -j /dev/xxx for each filesystem you want to run EXT3 on
For all non-root filesystems, change their entry in /etc/fstab to use ext3
- Install kernel and reboot
Notes:
Precompiled Debian kernels can be found here.
Turn off the now unneeded fsck's (after 20 reboots) with tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 /dev/hdxx.
You can keep ext2 enabled in the kernel (and still make sure it boots with ext3) by booting your system with the kernel option bootfs=ext3. (I haven't been able to find docs on this ... I think this is bunk)
Official home for up to date 2.4 patches are here and 2.2 patches here.
See Also: Debian Planet, Linux Newbie, Redhat's Errata on EXT3
There are issues with getting your root filesystem to truely mount as ext3. At least according to /proc/mounts. Use the bf24 kernel and ext3 is built in to fix this.