Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 15:30:35 GMT

> The filesystem HOWTO says that it is "easily" done, but doesn't mention
> how to do it.  Havn't been too successful in googling for an answer.
> Somebody give me a pointer please?

Well, it's in the man page (tune2fs), but even some fellow instructors have had trouble figuring it out:

tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/hda5

will turn off (and, I believe, remove) the journal. As OP has stated, an ext3 fs can probably be mounted as ext2, so it's not mandatory to turn off the journal to use the fs, but it could be confused if the journal is still there and stale the next time the fs is mounted.

Also, some utilities (specifically, previous versions of Partition Magic) cannot countenance an ext3 fs and won't deal with it. Turning off the journal satisfies PM.

Dave Brown