lfs-book/chapter02/creatingfilesystem.xml

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

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

  <para>Now that a blank partition has been set up, the file system can be
  created.  LFS can use any file system recognized by the Linux kernel, but the 
  most common types are ext3 and ext4.  The choice of file system can be 
  complex and 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 file system family of
      partition types.  It provides several new capabilities including
      nano-second timestamps, creation and use of very large files (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
  can be found at <ulink
  url="http://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, run the following:</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>