[GRLUG] WMNTUG Windows 7 Meeting

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Wed, 2009-09-16 at 14:35 -0400, john-thomas richards wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 02:26:03PM -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-09-16 at 13:55 -0400, john-thomas richards wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 01:46:40PM -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> > > > > on boot when ext3 hit its 35-mount automatic fsck. (On a rather full
> > > > > 1TB drive, that can take long enough so as to look like it's not
> > > > > getting anywhere...) 
> > > > Ugh, I know!  You can change that with tune2fs.
> > > How necessary is this anymore?
> > To delay, or control, the mandatory filesystem check that occurs every X
> > number of mounts.  On large filesystems this can take a very long time
> > and on laptops it can just be down right annoying.
> I know what it is, and certainly know how annoying it can be.  (Why is
> it always the Xth number of mounts when you need to boot quickly?)  My
> question isn't about tune2fs.  Is an automatic fsck necessary with a
> journaling filesystem like ext3?

Define "necessary".  It is the only way to determine if something
otherwise undetected has gone wrong - thus for the filesystem to be
"trusted" it is "necessary",  if you have "faith" in the journal system
[and hardware!] to correct/catch all issues then it is not "necessary".

Of course we are only dealing with the "trust" in the filesystem
meta-data here.  Integrity beyond that is a whole other kind of thing.