How to add reiser4 filesystem in your OS

The first alpha versions of Elive included native reiser4 support:

sudo modprobe reiser4

If you don't have the module available, you must install our unsigned kernel, because due to SecureBoot (restrictedboot), and the paradox of the biggest shit by Microsoft it's not possible to have it in a signed kernel

In such case, just install the unsigned version of your kernel:

api linux-image-$(uname -r)-unsigned

You should reboot now and select the other kernel from your boot list, and then you will have reiser4 directly available

Notes:

  • this kernel is compatible with any Debian Buster system
  • you should have SecureBoot disabled in order to boot this kernel
  • this kernel has been built for 64bit, there might not be a 32bit version at the moment
2 Likes

Running sudo modprobe reiser4 fails, so I installed the unsigned kernel. It uninstalled the signed one while it was at it. Rebooted and it (reiser4) still doesn't exist.

Right after rebooting:

                     Type 'help' to know the ton of Elive features available...
~ ❯❯❯ uname -r
4.19.0-8-amd64
~ ❯❯❯ sudo modprobe reiser4
[sudo] password for thetechrobo:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for thetechrobo:
modprobe: FATAL: Module reiser4 not found in directory /lib/modules/4.19.0-8-amd64
~ ❯❯❯ api linux-image-$(uname -r)-unsigned
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
linux-image-4.19.0-8-amd64-unsigned is already the newest version (4.19.98-1+deb10u1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 17 not upgraded.
~ ❯❯❯ apr linux-image-$(uname -r)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package 'linux-image-4.19.0-8-amd64' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 17 not upgraded.

Apugging right now, will edit post after finished and rebooted.

because it only exists in the kernels made by elive, so you need to use a "last kernel made by elive", you can know that from know the repo origin of the kernel, in your case 4.19.0-8 was newer than the one builded for elive which was 4.19.0-5, for example try:

appo linux-image-4.19.0-5-amd64-unsigned

note that is not suggested to use reiser4 for production or important data, better for experiments or computers without important data :slight_smile:

I thought that you said it's really reliable??

please quote :slight_smile: reliable is reiserfs (v3, not v4, which is not named reiserfs but reiser4), if the information is inadecuante in the forum it should be updated, but for the version 3 that's a delicated thing too:

  • v3 has been extremely reliable, fast and light FS, but it had some bugs in the recent versions of the kernels (which I assume it should be solved now in the new ones? i didn't tested much, it was disabled on previous kernels from the installer and should be available again IMHO)
  • v4 can be very good and fast, but reliable is not the word, maybe can be stable, but it may lack some features like the command "du" showing the storage sizes correctly, you are welcome to experiment with it or good to install in a very small hd machine for tests / play