Hello, I have read that ext3 (my current filesystem structure) is supposed to lower the effect of disk fragmentation unlike vfat. But, I would like to know how to defrag my linux partition (hda3). I downloaded GNU defrag 0.73. But, there''s one little problem; If I want to defrag the entire partition, I would have to unmount my / (root) partition, right? If you have had any success, I would like to know. It may be useful to defrag my drive every month or so; do you think it would be? Thanks for your help!

Well, you could always boot with a floppy boot/root disk configuration, and defrag from there. Of course, that''ll kill your uptime

rm -rf /bin/laden

I''ve never heard of Linux needing to be defragged. In fact, have you thought about the fact your putting your hard drive in the hands of someone that hasn''t even come out with a 1.0 release? I''d rather leave things to the kernel.

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Well, Linux (actually, the ext2 implementation) does do a better job than your standard FAT implementation. However, fragmentation still occurs, especially if your harddisk is rather full, and you delete / create files on a regular basis. So defragging can in fact improve performance. Not that I''ve ever done it...

cu,
Prefect

Yes, any filesystem can be fragmented. However, the way the ext2/3 FS''s are designed, there is very, very little fragmentation. Therefore, you only really need to worry about fragmentation if you go YEARS without formatting your hard drive. Not very likely, unless you NEVER upgrade your system.

rm -rf /bin/laden

maybe im wrong but im sure linux defrags itself. When you boot the OS, keep an eye on all the text flying by your screen (you do boot in text mode dont you?) when it comes to checking the hard disk it will tell you how badly fragmented it is. Im not sure what the line looks like, but its something like this

/dev/hda1 2022/2022 cylinders. 0.02% fragmented.

That''s just statistics by fsck (the Linux pendant to Scandisk). It doesn''t actually defrag the harddisk.

cu,
Prefect

Linux uses an intelligent file system. I''ve never heard of it having to be defragged. And Linux does check ur hardrive from time to time for non-continguous files, or if you unproperly umount it does it also.

Yeah, the checking of the FS when uncorrectly mounted is much more thorough than MS Scandisk. I don''t know what all it does, though, but it sure takes longer than scandisk.

rm -rf /bin/laden