I'll be installing FC5 soon and I really wanted to know if its nice & safe to use reiserFS with FC5. I don't want to use ext3 or ext2 because then my brother who uses Windows will be able to see my personal files in linux partitions using this Explore2fs program. Explore2fs is a nice little Windows program which lets u see ext3/ext2 filesystems in Windows.

But I've heard that using ReiserFS in FC5 is not advisable & not supported...?? Am I right?

Let me make it clear that I'll be using FC5 simply as a desktop OS with SELinux DISABLED.

Plz help me on this. Any suggestions or advice on this are welcome.

Thanks

Yes you can install Fedora in a reiserfs filesystem but there is windows software to access reiserfs also. I have not seen any windows software for jfs or xfs filesystems but that does not mean they do not exist.

If your brother is smart enough and has physical access to your computer then it will be almost impossible to keep him from viewing personal files unless you use encryption.

Fedora does not support reiserfs but that does not mean it is unadvisable.

You might want to look into fuse plug-ins for encrypted file systems, and consider encrypting your ~/ directory. (Most, if not all, fuse plug-ins are listed in the fuse SourceForge site, and the fuse kernel module is available from the extras repository.)

Hi,
let me suggest you a way of hiding whole drive on windows. You might be knowing this.....but it may be helpful for others.
To keep some private data (especially porn ), make a small partiton/drive. Suppose its 5 Gb.
now follow this:
Desktop-> my computer -> right click -> manage -> Disk management -> now right click on that particular drive letter -> change drive letters and path -> remove -> click 'yes' to confirmation.

your drive is still there but since you haven't assigned any name to it, so its not visible in "my computer" now.
In order to access it, follow the same procedure and at last assign it some letter.

thats it!!!

regards

I prefer reiserfs myself and that's the #1 reason I've kept SuSE around, but every time I've tried to install FC5 on a SuSE box it insists on reformating.

If there's a way to get anaconda to install FC5 on a reiserfs partition, I'd like to know how too.

You should be able to use reiserfs with Fedora Core by entering "linux reiserfs" at the boot prompt at the beginning of the FC installation. It should work fine with Fedora Core, just like it works fine on all other Linux distros. Redhat promotes ext3 more than reiserfs because ext3 works well with Selinux. Reiserfs does not (maybe the right word is "did not") support access control lists making it difficult to use with Selinux.

I'll have to give that a try next time around. I always disable selinux anyway so that would be great.

Hehe...how did u know my intentions?

Well my linux partitions ain't accessible via My Computer in Windows XP coz they are linux filesystems.

I'm just afraid that my brother may use a progaram like explore2fs to see my personal data. Now michael informed me that theres a windows program to see reiserfs as well!

I wouldn't like to encrypt my entire home partition...all that encrypting-whole-partitions-affair seems quite messy to me...I prefer things sweet & simple. I guess I'll simply use KGpg to encrypt those few (video ) files that I have which really shouldn't be seen by my brother

Although my brother has physical access to my machine I know he isn't that smart or inclined enough to boot the PC with a linux livecd and access my personal data. He hates Linux (which is good for me ) and is too lazy to learn anything linux-related.
We're twin brothers but poles apart in everything!!

But thanks for all ya help