mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.msdos

[Bart Silverstrim]

Karl Larsen wrote:

>     Is ext3 more or less a FAT type file system? I can see where the 
> constant reference to the table would wear out the flash media there.

I think less. FAT is essentially a linked list. Nothing more, nothing 
less, something gets corrupted, the corruption liked zipping through 
other files until it was repaired, which in the old days was discovered 
by wide eyes and lots of swearing.

>     Well James they seem to come from the factory with a FAT file 
> system. 

Because it's light on system resources and very cross-platform friendly 
and easier for support calls. Plug it in and it works.

>Odd but this seems to work with Linux which is used to ext2/3. 
> But as pointed out the FAT is not a very good file system, but used by 
> Microsoft from 1985 about.

You also forget that most modern filesystems aren't meant for disks less 
than a gig, which are still very common. You waste a lot of space when 
you have disks that small. FAT is a wonderful filesystem for small 
storage needs. Just not secure or robust.

>     I went to man mkfs and found it will make a mkfs.msdos so I used 
> that and it works fine. It is covered at man mkfs.msdos and there it 
> explains that DOS is a FAT but it has small FAT's which could be a 
> problem. There is a switch to get a 32 bit FAT.

Or stick it into a Windows machine and just format it. Either way.

>     Also the man page says that mkfs.msdos cannot make a bootable file 
> system. This being the case, why does it, or how does it work?

Probably can enable the bootable flag using a partition tool like 
gparted. Mkfs is for creating a filesystem only.