Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!visenix!beattie
From: beattie@visenix.UUCP (Brian Beattie)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Large Disks
Keywords: disks
Message-ID: <315@visenix.UUCP>
Date: 3 Oct 89 11:58:35 GMT
References: <233@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu> <3463@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: beattie@visenix.UUCP (Brian Beattie)
Organization: /usr/news/organization
Lines: 25

In article <3463@ast.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>
>An obvious question is how do people convert?  One thought is that you
>first tar your entire file system to diskette in tar format (or PAX or
>whatever we have at that time).  Then you build a new V2.0 MINIX boot
>diskette, turn the computer off, and reboot.  Next step is mkfs on your
>disk, erasing everything, and setting up a new file system with 64-byte
>i-nodes.  Then you read back the tar diskettes.  I don't think I need
>explain what happens if you make a mistake somewhere.
>
>Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)

I would suggest that the new kernel and bootdisk be able to read both
types of inodes.  This could be done by switching on the Magic number
of the filesystem.  This approach has several benefits, it would be
possible to use the smaller inodes on a floppy, the migration could be
done one filesystem at a time.

The amount of extra code necessary should be very small it is only the
reading of the inode into the incore structure that is different.
-- 
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