Patrick Wiseman <pwiseman@mindspring.com> [2002-10-05 17:16:53 -0400]:
> On Sat, 5 Oct 2002 at 5:05pm, Brenda J. Butler wrote:
>
> :What is the difference between e2fsck and fsck.ext2?
> :I'm about to try (one of) them without a net...
>
> I think they're the same thing, linked:
Yes, they are the same.
> watson:/home/pwiseman# ls -l /sbin/e2fsck
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 101224 Mar 21 2002 /sbin/e2fsck
> watson:/home/pwiseman# which fsck.ext2
> /sbin/fsck.ext2
> watson:/home/pwiseman# ls -l /sbin/fsck.ext2
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 101224 Mar 21 2002 /sbin/fsck.ext2
You can tell for sure that they are linked by looking at the Inode
numbers.
ls -li /sbin/e2fsck /sbin/fsck.ext2
1753150 -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 101224 Mar 21 2002 /sbin/e2fsck
1753150 -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 101224 Mar 21 2002 /sbin/fsck.ext2
If they are the same inode number on the same device then they are the
same file.
The e2fsck is the old name. Originally fsck was just fsck. Then the
ext filesystem came along and it needed an ext aware program and so
efsck was born. Then ext2 and it was e2fsck. You can see the trend.
Every new filesystem would need a new fsck and you would have to know
which is which. That is not a plan for the future methodology.
The solution is to have fsck be a "plugin aware" (my usage of the
word) program. It will just call fsck.${filesystem_type} and so
whatever filesystem type you are using will get the right program
called for it. Much simpler for the user. Much more modular since
now you can plug in other filesystems without needing to rewrite much
documentation and retrain users.
Bob
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