A.3. 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.

The following is a brief description of the ext2 and ext3 file systems, and how they can be utilized.

• 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 7.2 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 fsck[1]the 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.