I'm runnig 2.4.19 and Debian (but I compile my own kernel from the sources). ext3 is forcing the block device to be read only when I run out of inodes, and the only way out is reboot (that I could tell). This is wrose than a good deal of kernel panics I've had. Is 2.4.20prewhatever any better with reguard to this error? My system is running low on inodes (my fault), and back when I was using ext2 everything was fine, I would run out, the kernel would give the message about no more space on disk for everything that needed an inode until I freed up some. With ext3 I get one message saying no more space on disk and then everything else gives, readonly file system. After I hit the problem accidently, I verified running out of inodes was the problem on purpose. I would hate to think that I had to reboot everytime I filled up my harddrive, and it is an equally bad behavior to reboot when I run out of inodes. Here is some dmesg output. EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in ext3_new_inode: error 28 Aborting journal on device ide0(3,2). Remounting filesystem read-only EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in ext3_create: IO failure EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user ext3_abort called. EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user SpacedOut:/mnt/david/tuxscreen/buildroot-tux/build$ df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/hda2 362304 361710 594 100% / /dev/hdb1 1664640 210988 1453652 13% /mnt/hdb1 -- David Fries http://fries.net/~david/pgpkey.txt