[OpenWrt-Devel] procd: patch v3 to support busybox mkfs.ext2

[Luke McKee]

To quote Arjen:
If the only reason to switch to ext2 is to remove the journal, why not
just add

     -O ^has_journal

to the mount options?

----

That's not a mount option. That's a tune2fs option.

Journaling isn't the the only problem. The biggest problem is BLOAT.
You need libext2+e2fsprogs in a 4MB flash root image with the current
zram setup.
Would someone want /tmp on zram if they had to add all this to the 4MB
squashfs image.

-rw-r--r-- 1 lmc users 199739 Jul  3 06:15 e2fsprogs_1.43.1-1_mips_24kc.ipk
-rw-r--r-- 1 lmc users 151873 Jul  3 06:15 libext2fs_1.43.1-1_mips_24kc.ipk

The simple answer is most openwrt users would say no to this feature
do to how it's implemented.

I actually was going for ext2 like the original patch, but I was sold
that ext4 can mount ext2 formatted filesystems (without a journal)
(see man ext4). The ext4 filesystem driver vs ext2 does bloat a bit,
but I don't mind it as I can mount ext4 over nbd for my extroot.

Busybox is only 40k of source including the headers. mkfs.ext4 is 360k
compressed!
https://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/util-linux/mkfs_ext2.c

Also -O ^has_journal is an tune2fs option not a mount option. And that
tune2fs feature isn't in busybox, hence the bloat issue.

"BusyBox v1.24.2 () multi-call binary.

Usage: tune2fs [-c MAX_MOUNT_COUNT] [-i DAYS] [-C MOUNT_COUNT] [-L
LABEL] BLOCKDEV

Adjust filesystem options on ext[23] filesystems"
Busybox tune2fs is useless.

So 90% of the userbase with size constrained flash file-systems will
want to use busybox mkfs.ext2 instead. busybox mkfs.ext2 and mkfs.ext2
don't conflict because the package installs in /usr/sbin and busybox
installs in /sbin

I move that the feature be dependent ONLY on busybox mkfs.ext2.
Busybox mount isn't required because procd includes sys/mount.h
In order words set the path to /sbin/mkfs.ext2 (busybox)

Attached is the new patch. Allow users in the Makefile configuration
to choose to use LZ4 (more speed ~15% less compression) if they so
desire.
John can do the makefile if and when he merges the patch.

I'm out of the debate now, I got it in my
lede/packgaes/system/procd/patches/ directory :) I'm happy
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