ElementaryOs installer fails to format root as JFS

[Mikael Hartzell]

Hi :)

Bug: ElementaryOs installer gives user the possibility to format the root partition as JFS, but fails when trying to format it.

Cause: The program 'mkfs.jfs' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install jfsutils.

I always use JFS as my filesystem, since it is much more reliable than ext4. ElementaryOs installer gives the possibility to manually select and format target partitions, but if JFS filesystem and option "format partition" are chosen, the installer fails to format because jfsutils is not installed.

It is possible to install ElementaryOs to a preformatted empty JFS partition, but after installation when elementary boots up it displays an error message: Serious error were found while checking the disk drive for /. Press I to ignore, S to skip, of M for manual recovery. This message is displayed on every boot.

If user selects "I" to ignore this error, ElementaryOs boots up and functions without any problems. It seems this error is not critical.

JFS fileformat works ok in Ubuntu 12.04 / 12.10 installer.

Mikael Hartzell

[Cody Garver (codygarver)]

This is particularly strange because we should be pulling in jfsutils according to this:

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~elementary-os/elementaryos/platform.precise/view/head:/live-common

[Mikael Hartzell (mikael-hartzell)]

Hi again :)

Today I installed Ubuntu 12.04 again and I managed to get this bug to happen on Ubuntu also :) This shed some light on why this happens on Elementary :) On Ubuntu the bug gets triggered if the root partition is not formatted to JFS then Ubuntu won't install the package JFSUTILS even though I have other partitions that are JFS.

Now I understand why this error happens:

- ElementaryOS tries to run fsck.jfs on boot to check if the JFS partitions are in a sane state and the startup script throws an "serious error found" because it can not run the fsck.jfs - program.

- "/var/log/boot.log" says:

fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
fsck: fsck.jfs: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.jfs for /dev/sdc1
mountall: fsck /mounttipiste/Sailytettava_Tavara-Digiboxi [809] terminated with status 8
mountall: Unrecoverable fsck error: /mounttipiste/Sailytettava_Tavara-Digiboxi

- The problem can be easily solved by: sudo apt-get install jfsutils and on the next boot the error is gone.

I guess the best way to deal with this is to always install jfsutils, since the user might at any time later mount a JFS - formatted external hard disk to the computer.

Mikael Hartzell