how to convert to ReiserFS ?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Mon, 2006-07-03 at 11:10 -0500, Ken N9VV wrote:
> Dear Ubuntu gurus,
> is there any way to convert my existing etx3 file system to one of 
> the journaling file systems such as ReiserFS? is there an advantage?

There are many ways, none of them easy. And ext3 is a journaling file
system already, no you are unlikely to see much off an improvement if
you switch. Reiser performs well with large directories full of small
files, otherwise the two are pretty much on a par for regular usage.

You need to copy the existing files somewhere safe, then mkfs.reiserfs
the existing fs and move the files back. If you need to convert / then
things get interesting as you usually have to boot off a LiveCD to do it
- / must always be mounted so you can't umount it to do the switch

alan