lfs-book/chapter02/creatingfilesystem.xml

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<sect1 id="space-creatingfilesystem">
<title>Creating a File System on the Partition</title>
<?dbhtml filename="creatingfilesystem.html"?>

<para>Now that a blank partition has been set up, the file system can
be created. The most widely-used system in the Linux world is the
second extended file system (ext2), but with newer high-capacity
hard disks, journaling file systems are becoming increasingly
popular.  We will create an ext2 file system, however build
instructions for other file systems can be found at <ulink
url="&blfs-root;view/svn/postlfs/filesystems.html"/>.</para>

<para>To create an ext2 file system on the LFS partition, run the following:</para>

<screen><userinput>mke2fs /dev/<replaceable>[xxx]</replaceable></userinput></screen>

<para>Replace <replaceable>[xxx]</replaceable> with the name of the LFS
partition (<filename class="devicefile">hda5</filename> in our previous example).</para>

<note><para>Some host distributions use custom features in their filesystem
creation tools (e2fsprogs).  This can cause problems when booting into your new
LFS in Chapter 9, as those features will not be supported by the LFS-installed
e2fsprogs; you will get an error similar to <quote>unsupported filesystem
features, upgrade your e2fsprogs</quote>.  To check if your host system
uses custom enhancements, run the following command:</para>

<screen><userinput>debugfs -R feature /dev/<replaceable>[xxx]</replaceable></userinput></screen>

<para>If the output contains features other than: dir_index; filetype;
large_file; resize_inode or sparse_super then your host system may have custom
enhancements.  In that case, to avoid later problems, you should compile the
stock e2fsprogs package and use the resulting binaries to re-create the
filesystem on your LFS partition:</para>

<screen><userinput>cd /tmp
tar xjf /path/to/sources/e2fsprogs-&e2fsprogs-version;.tar.bz2
cd e2fsprogs-&e2fsprogs-version;
mkdir build
cd build
../configure
make #note that we intentionally don't 'make install' here!
./misc/mke2fs /dev/<replaceable>[xxx]</replaceable>
cd /tmp
rm -rf e2fsprogs-&e2fsprogs-version;</userinput></screen>
</note>

<para>If a swap partition was created, it will need to be initialized for use by
issuing the command below. If you are using an existing swap partition, there is
no need to format it.</para>

<screen><userinput>mkswap /dev/<replaceable>[yyy]</replaceable></userinput></screen>

<para>Replace <replaceable>[yyy]</replaceable> with the name of the swap
partition.</para>

</sect1>