“A file system is something which computer users hear about all the time, but many do not know very much about. This article is going to be a short guide, which goes over the basics of file systems so you will at least know enough to get by. This is a subject which can get as complicated as you want to make it, but a little knowledge can go a long way.”
This is a pretty lightweight article. I was hoping for something a little more in-depth.
I agree! Where’s the meat?
Now obviously this article is written for absolute noobs.
If you have >6 months of experience just move along…
Mounting is necessary because unlike in Windows (NTFS) there are no extra drives (C:, D:, E:, etc.) to add the device to, instead /mnt is needed.
Saying it disappoints is an act of kindness.
Many people are probably wondering- how does a file system become corrupt? When a file system is being manipulated and the process is unexpectedly interrupted corruption is likely to occur.
Unless the file-system is journaled such as ext3 and reiserfs.
When a file system is being manipulated and the process is unexpectedly interrupted corruption is likely to occur.
If unexpectedly interrupting a process would corrupt _any_ file systems (journaled or not), computers would probably be totally unusable. In fact, almost all systems guarantee that terminating a process gracefully closes down all its files (well, if Win95 didn’t, I wouldn’t be surprised).
[quote]
If unexpectedly interrupting a process would corrupt _any_ file systems (journaled or not), computers would probably be totally unusable.[/quote]
I think the author is talking about when you suddendly lose power or connection to the drive (when cables become loose or something). Not when the process exits. Most modern OSes prevent a processes from corrupting the file system when normal APIs are used. That is when you access the disk through normal Kernal APIs. If you directly access the disk like say disk warrior or norton disk utility does then all bets are off.
Read more like a filesystem type advertisement.
move along
I liked it, taught me a few things I did not know. I now know what exactly I want to learn more about.
But he didn’t talk about any future file system’s….
Where’s the info about inodes and allocation methods and such? This was popcorn. Only geeks are going to click on links that say “File Systems Explained” and they are going to be sorely disappointed, like I was.
Every implementation of a file system needs a few things, including hierarchical organization,
Actually, databasefilesystems don’t always..
even wikipedia’s entry seems like more info, without all the ads embedded in the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem
No offense, but this article was really cheesy. No doubt people new to computing will get some value out of it, and it’s commendable in this regards. But come on, these same people would not be the one reading OSNews pages to begin with! Of course, there is always an exception to the rule(s), but still… I don’t expect articles to be brutally specific to enjoy them. But if we are talking about technical articles, at least some meat…
Agree.
I miss the meat.
I was kinda hoping for an explanation of how systems index the data they store- how do more modern systems do it without requiring enormous cluster sizes? What about systems like HFS+ and Reiser4 which (if I understood what I read so far) have virtual folders with the same name as the file, that contain the access permissions and metadata and file modification/creation/size information, making the inode obsolete?
i learned nothing from this…i guess i can’t complain too much as this article is right in line with the type of stuff that shows up on osnews regularly
Does any distro still encourage use of reiserfs? Namesys has repeatedly stated that their focus is on reiser4 and 3 is completely in maintainence mode. Sure it still gets patches, but to have a company drop official support for a piece of software they wrote still kinda blows. Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to a slightly more mature reiser4 in mainline, just the politics / economics are kinda ookie.
that was a rather basic article.
It did however contain a few errors.
NTFS is not a journalising FS, it’s a quazi-journalising FS (I know the difference isn’t that big, but it’s still a difference).
But since the article is quite basic, calling NTFS a journalising FS isn’t that bad. The article would have been more complex, since it would have required a deeper look into the mentioned file systems.
A bit too basic, but a good place to start if you know next to nothing about FS.
NTFS is not a journalising FS, it’s a quazi-journalising FS (I know the difference isn’t that big, but it’s still a difference).
Could you explain? I kind of understand what journaling does but I don’t know what quasi-journaling does.
Best filesystems book ever: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1558604979/002-385545…
Too bad its out of print, but its likely that everyone interested in a copy already has one
The book is also available as PDF online:
http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/
Someone mentioned journal filesystems. Do they have more overhead than other filesystems? Also what about issues of the data getting fragmented in journal filesystems?
Where’s the Beef?
Could we posslibly disparage this articles lack of technical reference and merit without insulting the vegans by utilizing a better variety of colloquialisms?
…wheres the Quorn??
(or maybe)
wheres the reconsituted vegetable protein??
hmmm …doesn’t really have the same ring to it
Where’s the soy?
In vegan-land, soy is Gawd.
All chaff and no wheat?
That works a little better.
–JM
It’s not really a file systems explained more a file systems brifly reviewed. The first page actually does some kind of job of describing what a file system is, but the rest only talks about the most widespread file systems.
What struck me as “not noob friendly” was during the NTFS talk the author mentioned it was a journalling file system (a discussion whether or not it is is going on elsewhere and is not my point) without mentioning what journalising is. This the author first explains when talking about ext3. It’s normal practice, at least where I come from, to explain new terms the first time you meet them.
To give the author some credit I think it’s nice that people willingly put up with our (the reades) nasty criticism 🙂
Cheers