Adding ext4 support to non-SOHO VL 6

[pierce.jason]

I had some existing partitions in ext4 format that I wished to access. Seems only SOHO VL6 has ext4 support though. I'm a VL-Light user. So with the advise of M0E and some searching of old posts on here, I managed to "backport" ext4 support to VL-Light. This should work for any other non-SOHO versions of VL6 too I think.

You have to download a SOHO cd to get the necessary software updates, its not in the online repos that I could find. At the end of it all you should have the following upgraded packages:

kernel	2.6.31.8-i686-1vl60
kernel-modules	2.6.31.8-i686-1vl60
xz	4.999.9beta-i586-1vl60
pkgtools-tukaani	1.2.5-i586-1vl60
udev	141-i486-1vl60
dbus	1.2.20-i586-1vl60
e2fsprogs	1.41.9-i486-1vl60
util-linux-ng	2.17.1-i586-1vl60

Of course, with any upgrades, you need to do something with all the updated config files...`cd /etc; find -name "*new"`

The following quotation is the notes I made durring the process. PLEASE read through completely before attempting, as there was a glitch in my original process.

inst new kernel & modules

Code:

# installpkg http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-2.6.31.8-i686-1vl60.tlz
# installpkg http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-modules-2.6.31.8-i686-1vl60.tlz

to decompress new soho package formats

Code:

# slapt-get --install xz

mount soho cdrom. add to slapt-getrc repo list.
copy new pkgtools-tukaani to a temp directory and
   turn it into a tlz.

Code:

# xz -cd pkgtools-tukaani-1.2.5-i586-1vl60.txz | lzma > pkgtools-tukaani-1.2.5-i586-1vl60.tlz

install the tlz package of new pkgtools-tukkaani

Code:

# installpkg pkgtools-tukaani-1.2.5-i586-1vl60.tlz

Now slapt-get/installpkg should understand new .txz
   format from soho cdrom repo.

Code:

# slapt-get -install udev
# slapt-get -install dbus
# slapt-get -install util-linux-ng e2fsprogs

good to go now?

NO - yikes, reboot here would have left me with a dead system!!

mount errors
mount: /lib/libblkid.so.1: no version information available (required by mount)
mount: relocation error: mount: symbol blkid_new_probe, version BLKID_2.15 not defined in file libblkid.so.1 with link time reference

reinstall util-linux-ng to get correct libblkid

Code:

# slapt-get --install --reinstall util-linux-ng

util-linux-ng MUST BE INSTALLED AFTER e2fsprogs

I believe thats about it!

pierce.jason

[nightflier]

Nice work.

You actually added more than just EXT4 support to your system. Only thing I might add is the recommendation to run "depmod -aq" after upgrading your kernel, as outlined here: http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=10385

[pierce.jason]

What do you mean about "more than just EXT4"? Are you talking about the other features that have been added to the kernel since 2.6.27? Are there any outstanding improvements to 2.6.31 that the majority of users would be interested in?

I guess an obvious thing that was added, is newer packages format support... for the .txz packages.

[nightflier]

I guess an obvious thing that was added, is newer packages format support... for the .txz packages.

Yup, that's what I was referring to.