[plug] New to list - file system

[Matt Kemner]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Mike Massen,  Network Power Systems wrote:

> mmm OK - I take it then that even with a larger drive its either not
> possible or not appropriate to have the DOS 6.2 file system to base linux
> on. ?

It's possible, either by repartitioning the drive, so you have a dedicated
DOS partition and a dedicated Linux partition (your DOS partition can be
resized without reformatting using partitionmagic) or by using the UMSDOS
filesystem, which emulates a Linux filesystem on top of a DOS file system.

However there are not too many distributions that use the UMSDOS system by
default, and it may be a little tricky to set up for a
beginner.

However, you can read and write to DOS filesystems from Linux, so if
backing up is your concern, you can use "tar" to back up your entire linux
partition onto a DOS partition on the same drive, then reboot or use
either DOSemu or WINE to run your favourite DOS or Win3.x backup utility.

 - Matt