Arch Linux

UniqueActive

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 16

Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNU_Parted
I remember reading the beginner's guide a while ago with example partitioning and all the commands openly available. Now that the examples were removed, I am reading the parted wiki article and I am wondering why it's telling me to use ext3 instead of ext4.
Is there any reason to use ext3 over ext4 at this point?
Could I just replace 'ext3' with 'ext4'? I remember using ext4 on my previous arch installs, so this is kinda confusing me.
Thanks in advance!

dockland

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2015-06-06

Posts: 861

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNU_Parted
I remember reading the beginner's guide a while ago with example partitioning and all the commands openly available. Now that the examples were removed, I am reading the parted wiki article and I am wondering why it's telling me to use ext3 instead of ext4.
Is there any reason to use ext3 over ext4 at this point?
Could I just replace 'ext3' with 'ext4'? I remember using ext4 on my previous arch installs, so this is kinda confusing me.
Thanks in advance!

The wiki is not telling you to choose either. It's up to you, not a recommendation. Replace ext3 with ext4 if you prefer. There are a lot of other formats aswell, if you want to go with some of them.

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x33a

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 4,587

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

@UniqueActive, those are just examples and not recommendations. Also, FWIW, there is no reason to use ext3 over ext4 these days.

Moving to NC.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

The wiki has been updated

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frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,417

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

It also says """Most Linux native file systems map to the same partition code (0x83), so it is perfectly safe to e.g. use ext2 for an ext4-formatted partition."""

But since it confuses people, change it to ext4 by all means.

You could also remove it altogether. parted creates a Linux filesystem partition by default (didn't used to) so specifying the filesystem, as long as it's for Linux, doesn't actually do anything at all.

edit: I had this buried in my browser tabs for a while so I didn't see the earlier replies, sorry

Last edited by frostschutz (2016-07-24 17:59:01)

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,412

Website

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

For the record: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ta … or_fs-type

Last edited by Alad (2016-07-24 18:20:17)

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frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,417

Re: Partitioning: Parted - Wiki recommends ext3?

Well, that manual seems a bit dated. There is built-in help in parted so maybe just tell people to 'help mkpart' (or help anything else really) to get a more up-to-quarks description of things it does or doesn't do.

# parted /dev/loop0
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/loop0
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) help mkpart                                                      
  mkpart PART-TYPE [FS-TYPE] START END     make a partition

	PART-TYPE is one of: primary, logical, extended
        FS-TYPE is one of: btrfs, nilfs2, ext4, ext3, ext2, fat32, fat16, hfsx,
        hfs+, hfs, jfs, swsusp, linux-swap(v1), linux-swap(v0), ntfs, reiserfs,
        hp-ufs, sun-ufs, xfs, apfs2, apfs1, asfs, amufs5, amufs4, amufs3,
        amufs2, amufs1, amufs0, amufs, affs7, affs6, affs5, affs4, affs3, affs2,
        affs1, affs0, linux-swap, linux-swap(new), linux-swap(old)
        START and END are disk locations, such as 4GB or 10%.  Negative values
        count from the end of the disk.  For example, -1s specifies exactly the
        last sector.
        
        'mkpart' makes a partition without creating a new file system on the
        partition.  FS-TYPE may be specified to set an appropriate partition
        ID.

Even that description is incorrect. With GPT, instead of primary, logical, extended it's a PARTLABEL and most people end up copypastaing the good olde 'mkpart primary ...' which results in all partitions having 'primary' as PARTLABEL to be seen in /dev/disk/by-partlabel/primary [being a symlink to a random partition since they all use the same label]

If you have this on your system you should consider changing those labels to something sensible ('name' command in parted). I use RAID and use md(number-role) as partlabel, yet another place that has metadata when things go south and you can do a mdadm --assemble /dev/md5 /dev/disk/by-partlabel/md5-*

$ ls /dev/disk/by-partlabel/
md0-0  md1-5  md2-4  md3-3  md4-2  md5-1  md6-0  md6-6  md7-5  md8-4
md1-0  md1-6  md2-5  md3-4  md4-3  md5-2  md6-1  md7-0  md7-6  md8-5
md1-1  md2-0  md2-6  md3-5  md4-4  md5-3  md6-2  md7-1  md8-0  md8-6
md1-2  md2-1  md3-0  md3-6  md4-5  md5-4  md6-3  md7-2  md8-1  md9-0
md1-3  md2-2  md3-1  md4-0  md4-6  md5-5  md6-4  md7-3  md8-2
md1-4  md2-3  md3-2  md4-1  md5-0  md5-6  md6-5  md7-4  md8-3

with a standard install you'd choose labels like boot, root, home, swap, ... or whatever

Last edited by frostschutz (2016-07-24 18:32:32)