Upgrading Your File System

If the installation program detects the ext2 file system on your Red Hat Linux system, you can choose to retain your current ext2 file system or migrate to the ext3 file system. Following is a brief description of the ext2 and ext3 file systems and how they can be utilized.

Note

This section pertains only to users performing an upgrade from Red Hat Linux version 7.1 or earlier, or from a Red Hat Linux 7.2 or 7.3 installation where ext2 was chosen as the file system.

ext2

An ext2 file system supports standard UNIX file types (regular files, directories, symbolic links, etc). It provides the ability to assign long file names, up to 255 characters. Versions prior to Red Hat Linux 8.0 used ext2 file systems by default.

ext3

The ext3 file system is based on the ext2 file system and has one main advantage — journaling. Using a journaling file system reduces time spent recovering a file system after a crash as there is no need to fsck1the file system. It is recommended, but not required, that you choose to migrate to the ext3 file system. If you choose to migrate to the ext3 file system, existing system data will not be modified.

Note

The fsck application is used to check and optionally to repair one or more Linux file systems.