command to run defrag

starkadder · 07-06-2007, 01:38 PM

I have defrag installed but I can't work out how to run it. Can anyone offer advice regarding the command needed?

pljvaldez · 07-06-2007, 01:45 PM

Try man defrag. It appears to only work on ext, ext2, minix, and xiafs though. You're probably not using any of those, I would guess.

Most linux filesystems don't require defragmentation because of the way they handle file allocation.

saikee · 07-06-2007, 02:22 PM

The employment of a swap partition is one of the main reasons that Linux partitions do not need to be defraged regularly, if ever at all.

Also as a Linux system partition does not need artificial protections/obstructions to prevent it from being moved or copied one can always write the files out and copy them back to squeeze all the empty spaces out.

starkadder · 07-10-2007, 12:57 AM

Thank you for responding. I get conflicting advice about the need to defrag - I'm thinking about the scores of spam messages I delete (I have an "info" email address). I tried man "defrag" but in truth I don't know what to do with he resulting information - like many manuals it assumes a higher level of knowledge than some of it's readers have, I am new to all this and although I now prefer Ubuntu to windows I sometimes wish it was alittle more "idiot friendly"
A.

AceofSpades19 · 07-10-2007, 01:32 AM

You don't need to defrag in linux, and you could also look at the wonderful ubuntu wiki or google.com/linux