What file system should I use on a Sparc20

mikeiver

I have a Sparc 20 with a pair of 125MHz HyperSparc processors and 512 MB of RAM and need to know what type of FS should I be trying to load on the thing? I am leaning toward ReiserFS rather than ext3. Help...

Mike

ciaranm · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:28 am Post subject:

ext3. reiserfs *might* work, but it's probably broken on sparc32. It's definitely not well tested.

Also remember that reiserfs performs terribly on systems with not much CPU power and fast I/O... Oh yeah, and it isn't available in 2.2.x kernels either afaik, which is what you'll have to run on your box.

erol · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:41 pm Post subject:

I run 2.4.23 kernel on my Sparc5 with 110 MHz (supersparc or hypersparc, can't tell) and it's fine.
So far I didn't experienced any problems with ReiserFS, though, root and boot partitions are ext3 (ext2 boot, believe that's requirement from SILO).

ciaranm · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:52 pm Post subject:

SMP hypersparc only works properly on 2.2.x.

Ferris · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:24 pm Post subject:

If I recall correctly, patches do exist for reiserfs and kernel2.2.x for a
sparc20 (at one point, I built such a thing). I think Keith Weslowski pointed
me to them, but I would not put much money on that. Anyway, if you
poke around in this forum or in the gentoo-sparc mailing list from last
May or June (2003), you should find what I am thinking of.

That said, I have tried reiserfs on a couple systems. My own experiences
have been unpleasant when the systems got heavy use (like random results
from ebuilds when /var/tmp/portage and .ccache ended up in a reiserfs
file system.)

In both attempts, carefully cloning the suspect system onto an ext3 system
cured my problems, and there have been no detected hardware problems.
So, I would vote ext3 as well. (Or at least, get that working first & ease into
reiserfs at your leisure with a directory you can exercise hard but don't care
too much about. Like /var/tmp/portage :wink:

)

appetitus · Apprentice Joined: 28 Sep 2003 Posts: 210

<deleted> xfs eats files after crashes
_________________
Being a Gentoo user means living in a house inhabited by a family of crazed carpenters. When you wake up, the house is different. Maybe there is a new turret, or some walls have moved, or perhaps someone has removed the floor under your bed.

dogshu · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 5:48 pm Post subject:

I run a software RAID-1 setup on my SparcStation 20. Works great.

I also use reiserfs for the filesystem, I haven't had any problems with it at all.

My SS20 has two 85mhz supersparc-II chips in it.

sthamel · n00b Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Worcester, MA

Currently, I have "Linux beedrill 2.4.22-sparc-r0 #9 SMP Tue Oct 28 08:14:46 EST 2003 sparc sun4m ROSS HyperSparc RT625 or RT626..." and have been happy with its stability....

This machine is even running reiserfs (3.6) on root @ /dev/hda2 with decent performance for its age

... I have tried 2.4.26 but I think Reiserfs is broken since my version (kernel panic mounting root). I have also tried 2.6.x (even non SMP) to no avail at all

Anyone able to get a newer kernel working with ReiserFS on Sparc32? Maybe a better kernel config?

ciaranm · Posted: Wed May 19, 2004 7:00 pm Post subject:

Linux rosedrop 2.6.6 #15 Tue May 18 19:28:04 BST 2004 sparc sun4m ROSS HyperSparc RT625 or RT626 GNU/Linux

You need patches to get that far. You'll need even more patches (which you'll have to write yourself) to be able to use your hard drives. I'm not sharing my fix right now, since I have no clue whether it's correct :roll:

sthamel · n00b Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Worcester, MA

I there really that much of difference in the Reiserfs code from 2.4.22 to 2.4.26?

I would assume drive access if ok, since EXT2 and EXT3 filesystems are still mountable... It seems just ReisferFS partitions are unable to be the root partition (or maybe even mounted at all)...

Note: Of course, this machine is not a production machine