source: chapter02/creatingfilesystem.xml@ ad9fbd1

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<sect1 id="ch-partitioning-creatingfilesystem">
  <?dbhtml filename="creatingfilesystem.html"?>

  <title>Creating a File System on the Partition</title>

  <para>A partition is just a range of sectors on a disk drive, delimited by
  boundaries set in a partition table. Before the operating system can use
  a partition to store any files, the partition must be formatted to contain a file
  system, typically consisting of a label, directory blocks, data blocks, and
  an indexing scheme to locate a particular file on demand. The file system
  also helps the OS keep track of free space on the partition, reserve the
  needed sectors when a new file is created or an existing file is extended,
  and recycle the free data segments created when files are deleted. It may
  also provide support for data redundancy, and for error recovery.</para>
  
  <para>LFS can use any file system recognized by the Linux kernel, but the
  most common types are ext3 and ext4.  The choice of the right file system can be
  complex; it depends on the characteristics of the files and the size of
  the partition.  For example:</para>

  <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
      <term>ext2</term>
      <listitem><para>is suitable for small partitions that are updated infrequently
      such as /boot.</para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
      <term>ext3</term>
      <listitem><para>is an upgrade to ext2 that includes a journal
      to help recover the partition's status in the case of an unclean
      shutdown.  It is commonly used as a general purpose file system.
      </para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
      <term>ext4</term>
      <listitem><para>is the latest version of the ext family of
      file systems.  It provides several new capabilities including
      nano-second timestamps, creation and use of very large files
      (up to 16 TB), and speed improvements.</para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>

  <para>Other file systems, including FAT32, NTFS, ReiserFS, JFS, and XFS are
  useful for specialized purposes. More information about these file systems, 
  and many others, can be found at <ulink
  url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems"/>.</para>

  <para>LFS assumes that the root file system (/) is of type ext4. To create
  an <systemitem class="filesystem">ext4</systemitem> file system on the LFS
  partition, issue the following command:</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>mkfs -v -t ext4 /dev/<replaceable>&lt;xxx&gt;</replaceable></userinput></screen>

  <para>Replace <replaceable>&lt;xxx&gt;</replaceable> with the name of the LFS
  partition.</para>

  <para>If you are using an existing <systemitem class="filesystem">swap
  </systemitem> partition, there is no need to format it. If a new
  <systemitem class="filesystem"> swap</systemitem> partition was created,
  it will need to be initialized with this command:</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>mkswap /dev/<replaceable>&lt;yyy&gt;</replaceable></userinput></screen>

  <para>Replace <replaceable>&lt;yyy&gt;</replaceable> with the name of the
  <systemitem class="filesystem">swap</systemitem> partition.</para>

</sect1>