That file really need serious updating. Here is at least a small patch
--- linux-2.5.45/Documentation/filesystems/ext2.txt.xxxx Thu Oct 31 01:42:20 2002
+++ linux-2.5.45/Documentation/filesystems/ext2.txt Fri Nov 1 12:07:01 2002
@@ -319,26 +319,8 @@
----------
A journaling extension to the ext2 code has been developed by Stephen
-Tweedie. It avoids the risks of metadata corruption and the need to
-wait for e2fsck to complete after a crash, without requiring a change
-to the on-disk ext2 layout. In a nutshell, the journal is a regular
-file which stores whole metadata (and optionally data) blocks that have
-been modified, prior to writing them into the filesystem. This means
-it is possible to add a journal to an existing ext2 filesystem without
-the need for data conversion.
-
-When changes to the filesystem (e.g. a file is renamed) they are stored in
-a transaction in the journal and can either be complete or incomplete at
-the time of a crash. If a transaction is complete at the time of a crash
-(or in the normal case where the system does not crash), then any blocks
-in that transaction are guaranteed to represent a valid filesystem state,
-and are copied into the filesystem. If a transaction is incomplete at
-the time of the crash, then there is no guarantee of consistency for
-the blocks in that transaction so they are discarded (which means any
-filesystem changes they represent are also lost).
-
-The ext3 code is currently (Apr 2001) available for 2.2 kernels only,
-and not yet available for 2.4 kernels.
+Tweedie. As of Linux 2.4 it has been fully integrated in the kernel.
+Please see the Documentation/filesystems/ext3.txt file for full details.
References
==========
Regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
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