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BCA Semester 6 - Linux Environment - Linux Partitions (Q and A)

Linux Partitions (Q and A)

BCA Semester 6 - Linux Environment
BCA Semester 6 - Linux Environment - Linux Partitions (Q and A)


Question:
(a) What are disk partitions?

(b) Which Linux process setup the root partition of a hard disk?

(c) Name commonly used Linux partitions and state the purpose of each

(d) What is the rule of thumb for setting the size of swap partition?

(e) What is a filesystem?

(f) What is namespace in perspective to file systems? Give an example.

(g) What is VFS?


Answer:

(a) Disk Partitions: Hard disk is divided into sections or storage areas which allows programs and data to be stored separately. Or various partitions can reside multiple operating systems on a single disk.

(b) The root partition '/' is made ready during booting by mount process.



(c) Common names of Linux partitions are:

/ - root partition, stores Linux installation and program files

/boot - stores Linux kernel

/home - store user accounts and their personal files

/usr - store users' program files

/tmp - store temporary files

/var - used for variable size data including unprocessed email etc.

/swap - used as extra memory by working files and applications

/proc - describes currently running processes;


(d) The size of swap partition is roughly the double the size of computer's RAM.


(e) A filesystem is a hierarchical storage of data adhering to a specific structure. A filesystem contains files, directories, and associated control information.Typical operations performed on filesystems are creation, deletion, and mounting.


(f) In Unix or Linux, filesystems are mounted at a specific mount point in a global hierarchy known as a namespace. all mounted filesystems to appear as entries in a single tree.
e.g. In linux, all external USB drives mount at /media namespace.


(g) The Virtual Filesystem (also called Virtual File Switch or VFS) is the subsystem of the kernel file and interfaces provided to user-space programs. All programs use linux system calls to read and write to various types of file systems or media using VFS interface.