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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE sections SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd"> |
2 | <!DOCTYPE sections SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd"> |
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| 4 | <!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license --> |
4 | <!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license --> |
| 5 | <!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 --> |
5 | <!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 --> |
| 6 | |
6 | |
| 7 | <!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/handbook/hb-install-ppc64-disk.xml,v 1.32 2007/06/26 17:12:56 nightmorph Exp $ --> |
7 | <!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/handbook/hb-install-ppc64-disk.xml,v 1.33 2008/04/01 08:53:46 nightmorph Exp $ --> |
| 8 | |
8 | |
| 9 | <sections> |
9 | <sections> |
| 10 | |
10 | |
| 11 | <version>8.2</version> |
11 | <version>9.0</version> |
| 12 | <date>2007-06-26</date> |
12 | <date>2008-04-01</date> |
| 13 | |
13 | |
| 14 | <section> |
14 | <section> |
| 15 | <title>Introduction to Block Devices</title> |
15 | <title>Introduction to Block Devices</title> |
| 16 | <subsection> |
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| 17 | <title>Block Devices</title> |
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| 18 | <body> |
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| 19 | |
16 | |
| 20 | <p> |
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| 21 | We'll take a good look at disk-oriented aspects of Gentoo Linux |
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| 22 | and Linux in general, including Linux filesystems, partitions and block devices. |
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| 23 | Then, once you're familiar with the ins and outs of disks and filesystems, |
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| 24 | you'll be guided through the process of setting up partitions and filesystems |
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| 25 | for your Gentoo Linux installation. |
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| 26 | </p> |
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| 27 | |
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| 28 | <p> |
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| 29 | To begin, we'll introduce <e>block devices</e>. The most famous block device is |
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| 30 | probably the one that represents the first IDE drive in a Linux system, namely |
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| 31 | <path>/dev/hda</path>. If your system uses SCSI drives, then your first hard |
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| 32 | drive would be <path>/dev/sda</path>. Serial ATA drives are also |
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| 33 | <path>/dev/sda</path> even if they are IDE drives. |
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| 34 | </p> |
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| 35 | |
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| 36 | <p> |
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| 37 | The block devices above represent an abstract interface to the disk. User |
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| 38 | programs can use these block devices to interact with your disk without worrying |
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| 39 | about whether your drives are IDE, SCSI or something else. The program can |
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| 40 | simply address the storage on the disk as a bunch of contiguous, |
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| 41 | randomly-accessible 512-byte blocks. |
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| 42 | </p> |
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| 43 | |
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| 44 | </body> |
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| 45 | </subsection> |
17 | <subsection> |
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18 | <include href="hb-install-blockdevices.xml"/> |
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19 | </subsection> |
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20 | |
| 46 | <subsection> |
21 | <subsection> |
| 47 | <title>Partitions and Slices</title> |
22 | <title>Partitions and Slices</title> |
| 48 | <body> |
23 | <body> |
| 49 | |
24 | |
| 50 | <p> |
25 | <p> |
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| 594 | Otherwise read on to learn about the available filesystems... |
569 | Otherwise read on to learn about the available filesystems... |
| 595 | </p> |
570 | </p> |
| 596 | |
571 | |
| 597 | </body> |
572 | </body> |
| 598 | </subsection> |
573 | </subsection> |
| 599 | <subsection> |
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| 600 | <title>Filesystems?</title> |
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| 601 | <body> |
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| 602 | |
574 | |
| 603 | <note> |
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| 604 | Several filesystems are available. ext2, ext3 and ReiserFS support is built in |
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| 605 | the Installation CD kernels. JFS and XFS support is available through kernel |
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| 606 | modules. |
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| 607 | </note> |
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| 608 | |
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| 609 | <p> |
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| 610 | <b>ext2</b> is the tried and true Linux filesystem but doesn't have metadata |
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| 611 | journaling, which means that routine ext2 filesystem checks at startup time can |
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| 612 | be quite time-consuming. There is now quite a selection of newer-generation |
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| 613 | journaled filesystems that can be checked for consistency very quickly and are |
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| 614 | thus generally preferred over their non-journaled counterparts. Journaled |
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| 615 | filesystems prevent long delays when you boot your system and your filesystem |
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| 616 | happens to be in an inconsistent state. |
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| 617 | </p> |
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| 618 | |
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| 619 | <p> |
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| 620 | <b>ext3</b> is the journaled version of the ext2 filesystem, providing metadata |
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| 621 | journaling for fast recovery in addition to other enhanced journaling modes like |
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| 622 | full data and ordered data journaling. It uses an HTree index that enables high |
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| 623 | performance in almost all situations. In short, ext3 is a very good and reliable |
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| 624 | filesystem. |
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| 625 | </p> |
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| 626 | |
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| 627 | <p> |
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| 628 | <b>ReiserFS</b> is a B+tree-based filesystem that has very good overall |
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| 629 | performance and greatly outperforms both ext2 and ext3 when dealing with small |
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| 630 | files (files less than 4k), often by a factor of 10x-15x. ReiserFS also scales |
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| 631 | extremely well and has metadata journaling. ReiserFS is solid and usable as |
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| 632 | both general-purpose filesystem and for extreme cases such as the creation of |
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| 633 | large filesystems, very large files and directories containing tens of |
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| 634 | thousands of small files. |
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| 635 | </p> |
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| 636 | |
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| 637 | <p> |
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| 638 | <b>XFS</b> is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported |
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| 639 | under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and |
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| 640 | is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux |
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| 641 | systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible |
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| 642 | power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly |
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| 643 | designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files |
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| 644 | to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the |
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| 645 | system goes down unexpectedly. |
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| 646 | </p> |
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| 647 | |
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| 648 | <p> |
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| 649 | <b>JFS</b> is IBM's high-performance journaling filesystem. It has recently |
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| 650 | become production-ready. |
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| 651 | </p> |
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| 652 | |
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| 653 | </body> |
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| 654 | </subsection> |
575 | <subsection> |
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576 | <include href="hb-install-filesystems.xml"/> |
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577 | </subsection> |
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578 | |
| 655 | <subsection id="filesystems-apply"> |
579 | <subsection id="filesystems-apply"> |
| 656 | <title>Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</title> |
580 | <title>Applying a Filesystem to a Partition</title> |
| 657 | <body> |
581 | <body> |
| 658 | |
582 | |
| 659 | <p> |
583 | <p> |
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