Very Computer

1. How do you 'format' a Linux hard disk partition?

Dear All,

As a project for a teacher training course, I'm trying to write a
(non-commercial) complete beginners' guide to 'just getting started'
with Linux as an Intranet server. The guide is intended for use by IT
co-ordinators in UK schools who I assume know absolutely nothing of Unix
or Linux.

The problem for them is that they are ordinary over-worked and
under-resourced teachers, being pushed to develop inter/intranets
without any cash. Apart from its networking capabilities and its cost,
the transparency of Linux could also make it valuable learning tool for
more
advanced students.

My problem is that there are huge gaps in my own knowledge of Linux,
even though I've been using Unix for over 8 years, i.e. things that
every system administrator should know, but which I never needed to know
as an end-user.

I wonder if people would be willing to bear with me whilst I ask a few
'stupid questions' that I haven't yet found answers to in the faqs and
howtos?

Any answers, including pointers to faqs, howtos, and man pages I've
over-looked or mis-read would be appreciated.

This particular question is in the subject line, i.e.

How do you 'format' a Linux hard disk partition?

Sub-questions:

1) I gather from the man pages on my Red Hat 5.0, that you do this by
setting the -t fstype option to mkfs, but as usual it gives no worked
example to show you how to do that. Any suggestions as to how I might
format /dev/hdb7 as ext2?

2) The same man page says that if I don't set this option, 'the  type
is deduced by searching for filesys in /etc/fstab and using the
corresponding entry'. Does this mean that all I have to do is put a
default entry for any recognised file system in /etc/fstab and then type
'mkfs /usr' to format the partition mounted as /usr?

3) This man page suggests looking at other mks man pages, e.g. mkfs.ext2
. Sadly, none of these exist on my hard disk

4) Cam mkfs format a disk in any of Linux's recognised formats? e.g.
HPFS etc

Thanks, in advance.

Dave

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