Open SUSE® 11.0 and SUSE® Linux® Enterprise Server Bible

Chapter 3. Partitions, Filesystems, and Files

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating partitions

• Selecting and creating filesystems

• Mounting filesystems

• Unmounting filesystems

Partitions are physical or logical portions of a disk; a filesystem is the logical arrangement of data on a physical or logical partition so that your computer system can access and store data there.

During the installation of SUSE Linux, by default, at least two partitions will be created: a root partition and a swap partition. There are important reasons why you might want to create more than these two partitions. It is also possible that you want to boot more than one operating system on the same computer, so you need to retain pre-existing partitions. For all these reasons, an understanding of how partitioning works is essential for a Linux user.

Linux gives you far more control over the partitions you use for your system than Windows does. As a result, of course, it also gives you more opportunities to make mistakes. But if you have a good understanding of partitioning, you can create a disk layout that is most efficient for your purposes.

The next few sections cover partitions—how to use them, why you use them, and where you use them. Later in this chapter, you will use this basic knowledge about partitions to create a filesystem in which you can actually create and store files and directories.

Partitions

We touched upon partitions during the installation of SUSE in Chapter 1, and the configuration and creation of these is relatively ...