[parisc-linux] Allow palo partition to be mounted as ext2

[M. Grabert]

On Sat, 7 Nov 2003, James Bottomley wrote:

> It can be a bit of a pain having both a palo partition and a /boot
> partition on the root disc (and both < 2GB), so this patch allows the
> palo partition to be mounted as an ordinary ext2/ext3 filesystem
> (ideally as /boot).

Well, not if you have read the FAQ ;)
But I agree, I recently assisted someone (via IRC) reinstalling
his 712, because he forgot to create a F0 partition, but he
created a /boot in the first 2GB.

> It does this by creating an ext2/3 filesystem in the palo partition but
> leaving a hole for the iplboot program (by telling the filesystem the
> blocks are bad).  The kernels can be booted from this filesystem by
> specifying 0/ as the partition as usual.

I don't know much ext2/3 details, but is there a way that a fsck
could mess things up? Eg. not an ordinary fsck, but if the user
runs it manually with special options?

I suppose the same technique could be also used for other filesystems
palo supports (in the future).

> Attached is a preliminary patch for you to see what you think.
>
> Ultimately, it should mean we can get palo to operate much more like
> grub (using a palo.conf file within the palo partition itself for
> instance).

That would be a logical consequence.

Very nice!


Keep up the good work,
  Max