TC wrote:
> Well, I use ext2. If I understand ext2 correctly, you may have 32k 
> subdirectories before linux throws the towel. 

I never heard of that. It's perhaps an artifact of how many links you can 
have to one file, since ".." in a subdirectory links back to the parent 
directory.

> Would it crash? Or be graceful 
> about it? I surely will not try it out...

Now you have me curious enough to try it. ;-)

> However, I cannot find anything about the number of files I can store in a 
> single directory. I assume that this number is limited by diskspace only.

Most likely, since I think ext is in many ways similar to the original v7 
directory layout that BSD replaces the API for.

> But it is no good to assume. And since I know no linux guru but am pretty 
> sure here are quite a lot of them to be found, I asked the question. I would 
> hate to delve through tons of technical documentation.

Every time I've been foolish enough to build a system like that, I've put a 
layer of subdirectories between, so that file abcdefghijk.txt would be 
stored in /stuff/abc/def/ghi/jk.txt or some such.

> I did not know about the indexing flag, though, thank you. Maybe I'll find 
> more on it.

I found it thru yast, but I'm sure you can turn it on and off with ext2tune 
or whatever it's called. Apparently, "-O dir_index" passed to mkfs.ext3 will 
do the trick, but I think you can turn it on with an fsck as well.

> It's always a surprise what can or cannot be done with or to a filesystem if 
> you take a closer look. I really hate the ADS on Windows NTFS, for 
> instance - I find this an abomination. ;-)

Whyfor? Every file system nowadays has something like this, including Linux. 
And it's pretty useful and a logical extension of how NTFS organizes files 
anyway. What don't you like about it?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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