reiserfs vs. ext3 . . .

[integr8e]

After reading through the threads on this forum, I stumbled upon a word that caught my attention, reiserfs; I googled it and it seems very interesting.

My question is this: is reiserfs better than ext3? If so, is it possible to convert my existing ext3 partition over to reiserfs, and how?

I am fairly new to the Linux world, having converted from M$ only a few months ago, and am somewhat unfamiliar with the various partitions involved. I would greatly appreciate answers to my above posted questions and any additional info about Linux's partitions (including reiserfs, ext2, & ext3; I think I've got the concept of swap down).

[mulander]

Re: reiserfs vs. ext3 . . .

I will not go into details with reiserfs vs ext3 because my knowledge in this area is little, but I will try to answer Your question about converting existing filesystems.
Changing the file system will result in the loss of current data stored on the partition. I wouldn't recommend changing the main system partition unless You would like to reinstall the system. If You have Your /home folder as a separate partition then You could change the filesystem there. This would require editing /etc/fstab after the change (probably from a Live CD) also backing up the data would be a good idea.

[kubicle]

Re: reiserfs vs. ext3 . . .

Here are a few resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/388
http://jamesthornton.com/hotlist/linux-filesystems/

Before you dig deeply into the realm of filesystem comparisons (and you can spend a lifetime digging), on common desktop systems the performance differences are in my experience mostly negligible.