I'm testing out the Ubuntu Jaunty beta, and I have some questions about ext4.

1. If I convert my /boot partition to ext4, will I still be able to boot Ubuntu 8.10?

2. If I have my data and /home folder on a separate partition, is there risk of data loss to that data if I use ext4 on my root partition.

3. One of the supposed advantages of ext4 is that you can convert an ext3 system to ext4 without having to wipe out all your data. However, I can't seem to find definitive instructions on how to do this. Anyone have ideas?

4. Is there any way of benchmarking my HD speed to see if it's actually worth it to upgrade to ext4?

If these questions have been asked already, feel free to post a link to the threads where they're answered.

Thanks!

Hi

1 - No as Grub does not yet support ext4 filesystems ( being worked on).
2 - Should be ok, but dont take my word for it, back it up.... Golden rule !!
3 - Just mount it as ext4, new data will be created as ext4 leaving the old as ext3, recommend you double check this.
4 - have a look here : http://www.iozone.org/

jmite:

A point of advise:

Don't gamble what is good and running just because something is new and others "say" it's better. If there is no dire need to change into ext4 do not.

To compare: ext4 is just new and only recent kernels have it. Ergo, ext3 is still better. But, in all my linux systems where no mySQL runs or no critical data <business record> exists I always prefer the best old ext2. This laptop I use now is partitioned only with two formats: if not ext2 it is ntfs.

I hope this helps.