LinuxQuestions.org - Partition or format?

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Partition or format?

I have an 800Mhz Windows box that I want to install linux on. The drive is a single partition of Windows. I do not care about the Windows installation that is currently on the drive.

I have a Fedora installation disk set. Will the Fedora format the drive or do I need to do this ahead of installation. If ahead of installation with what software?

Thanks

The Linux install cd has a section on partitioning / formatting your hard drives.

Fedora should certainly let you partition and format when you install it. To format partitions in Linux you use the "mkfs" command (short for "make filesystem"). So if you see that come up, think of it like Windows' "format" command.

Windows can format things as NTFS, FAT, FAT32, etc. Under Linux, some common "file system types" are EXT2, EXT3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, etc. All of these Linux filesystem types are "journaling filesystems" except EXT2 (under Windows NTFS is a journaling filesystem, the FAT variations are not). Generally, you want to use journaling filesystems for the most part.