Re: checking whether partition mounted as ext3

["Jeffrey L. Taylor" <jeff@austinblues.dyndns.org>]

Quoting Michael D Schleif <mds@helices.org>:
> If you want to know what the running OS is using, look to /proc :
> 
>    cat /proc/self/mounts
> 
> If that still tells you `ext3/ext2', then I suspect that the kernel and
> the filesystem have some kind of (code) agreement to dynamically
> negotiate -- but, that is only a guess ;>
> 
> hth
> 


An oddity:

maelstorm:/proc# more mounts
/dev2/root / ext3 rw 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
/dev/hda2 /home ext2 rw 0 0

maelstorm:/proc# mount 
/dev/hda1 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/hda2 on /home type ext2 (rw)

The first command claims root is ext3.  The second claims root is
ext2. I suspect the former is correct.  I converted the original ext2
FS to ext3 and am now trying to revert.  The journal file is still
there and during the boot sequence, the kernel is probing for the root
partition FS type.

/etc/fstab says:

/dev/hda1       /               ext2    errors=remount-ro       0       1
/dev/hda3       none            swap    sw                      0       0
proc            /proc           proc    defaults                0       0
/dev/fd0        /floppy         auto    user,noauto             0       0
/dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 ro,user,noauto          0       0
/dev/hda2       /home           ext2    defaults                0       2

/etc/mtab says:

/dev/hda1 / ext2 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/hda2 /home ext2 rw 0 0

The auto-probed FS type from boot persists in spite of the value in
fstab.

As to why revert to ext2, after conversion to ext3 and serveral other
changes, the hard disk stays on all the time.  I'm trying to figure
out why.

Anyone know how to safely convert an ext3 FS to ext2?

Jeffrey