Can Debian be installed on a regular fat32 partition or NTFS partition just as we install it on an ext3 partition? If not, are there any other distributions of linux which can be installed on fat32 or NTFS partition.

Thanks

I'm sure that Linux cann't be installed on an NTFS partition since it cann't even write using this filesystem, only (with luck) read. I've never heard of Linux instalations on FAT32 partitions, but I think it's not possible.

Why you want to do this? Even if possible it's better to use either ReiserFS, ext3 or other Linux native filesystems.

Thanks for the reply. Actually I was just curious to know as one of my friends asked me the other day if we can install linux on fat or NTFS partition.

Btw, u mentioned about ReiserFS partition. I have heard a lot about it. What are the advantages of using ReiserFS in comparison to ext3 partition. Hows does both of them differ.

thanks

Linux defrags "on the fly" and if it were to use a FAT based file system to run, the drive performance would be significantly impacted. It takes forever for me to copy files from my hard drive to a zip formated with FAT, but it is much quicker doing the same with a Rieser formated zip.

Fat32 and ntfs are not designed to be used with unix-style operating system. Files on those filesystems can't have "owners and owner groups", they don't have special flags (suid,guid) nor do they have read-write-execute flags. Among other things.

Only way to run Linux on fat32 or ntfs partition would be to create a virtual filesystem inside a special file and run ext2,ext3,reiserfs or similar inside that file.

Or that's how I see it. Maybe some poor bastard has already installed linux on a fat32, God knows

So far as I know, RH9 and FC can be installed on FAT patitions. But surely it will slow your performance. So I recommend that you DO NOT do that.

Well, there is WinLinux... It installs as a normal windows application (under 95, 95 and ME). www.winlinux.net

Hi;

Many linux distributions can be installed to FAT or FAT32 disk partitions.

There are two file systems for this: UMSDOS which puts linux on a folder of the FAT or FAT32 partition, I know of Monkey Linux and Winlinux but maybe there are other distributions who can be installed on this file system, the other is LOOP which installs linux on a big file on FAT or FAT32 partition, I know of Peanut linux (I think it's called LOOP linux now) and -actually- Mandrake!! but maybe there are other distributions who can be installed on this file system as well. In both cases you need to run Loadlin.exe or other utility to run linux in these file systems.

I have tried Monkey but I think it will be difficult to run it on modern hardware, also I tried Winlinux and Peanut (loop) linux and they are excellent.

I guess Debian can be installed using UMSDOS or LOOP, this may require to load the file system from the installer console and mount the appropriate locations and/or edit some files. Any help here !!!!!

Thank you guys for all your reply. I would still like to know the difference between ext3 and ReiserFS partition.

Thanks

You can read about them here: http://kerneltrap.org/node/1054