Hello!

I just bought myself a new USB stick. It works flawlessly.
I changed the file system to ext3 under Ubuntu 7.10 with
$ sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
However, mkfs.ext3 reserved 5% for the super user, which I do not fancy.
How can I override that behavior? Neither man pages nor Google helped me out on this one.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Guba

Is the drive just being used for storage or is the OS operating off of it?

Hi,

thanks for your reply.
It is just storage (quite small, actually: 1Gb).

Have a look at man tune2fs. You never want to do this to your root drive, you can run out of filespace (temp files) while running(total system freeze). If this happens it can be a real PITA to get fixed.

This is filesystem dependant - "man mkfs.ext3" (rather than just "man mkfs") should show you.
A stated, tune2fs allows you to "fix" it after the fact.

Hello again,

that was quite helpful, I now ran

$ sudo mkfs.ext3 -j /dev/sdb1 && tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 -r 0 -m 0 /dev/sdb1

However, I still have some 17Mb used right after creating the file system!!!


Here is the bash output:

guba@ubox:~$ sudo mkfs.ext3 -j -m 0 /dev/sdb1 && tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 -r 0 -m 0 /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
125952 inodes, 251900 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=260046848
8 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
15744 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (4096 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 20 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
tune2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Setting maximal mount count to -1
Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds
Setting reserved blocks percentage to 0% (0 blocks)
Setting reserved blocks count to 0
guba@ubox:~$

Any ideas!?

Guba

How are you determining what has been used? Are you accounting for the journal?

I get my information from my Gnome desktop: after mounting the usb I right-cklick the icon and go to Properties.
Of course, the journal needs some space, however, 17Mb sounds a bit much!?

Off the top of my head that seems about right.

Okay, I will then have to accept this!
Thanks for all your input! Great stuff.

Guba