Best HD partition format for linux
 

I want to partition my 80gig HD to dual-boot WinXP and college linux. I need to obviously reformat the new partitions. I am going to keep NTFS for WinXP, but what would the best format be for linux? I have heard that Fat32 is good, but my partition manager lets me choose from Fat16/32, Linux Ext2, Linux Ext3, (btw, what is Linux Ext2/3?), ReiserFS, HPSF and im presuming that the format Swap will best be suited for the linux swap file (??). I dont need WinXP and linux to share files, so it doesnt bother me if the two formats (NTFS and other) cant read/write to each other. Any help will be great. Cheers.

Don't use FAT32 -- it's the old DOS/Win9x filesystem and won't support *nix style permissions. Frankly, I doubt it will even correctly to use it as your Linux root partition -- it's only really useful to share files with Windows. Swap is a separate partition, not a file as on Windows (although you can use a file as swap, but it's less efficient). The swap partition will use the swap type. Otherwise, Ext3 or Reiser are the most widely used options. Unless you are planning to do really heavy I/O operations or create really large partitions (i.e. hundreds of gigabytes), it really doesn't matter much which you choose. Ext3 is the conservative choice, but Reiser allegedly performs better in certain circumstances.

I always use ext3 it the current default for most linux distributions works well, it is well proven and also a journal. Both Reiser and ext3 use a journalling system for recovery of the filesystem after a power loss. This maintains the integrity of your filesystem.

My verdict ext3.

I have been using reiserfs for quite a while. I use Gentoo so I stay on the edge anyway. It works great, even on the rigs that have no UPS to back them up when the power goes out.

It mostly depends on your CPU though. If it is really slow, use ext2 or ext3 at most. There is a little overhead to the journal stuff. If you have a fairly speedy CPU, use whatever you want. You won't likely tell the difference anyway.

Later

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