-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi. Not to put water on your fire, but a *nix system is inherently different from a MS style one. Defraging is pretty much not needed for two reasons.
First, files are written to a location on the disk where the file will fit whole first, then in two pieces if the disk is really full, and so on, so that fragmentation is a rare event and eventually self correcting. Compare this to MS, where the first open sector is used regardless of whether the file will fit. Fragmentation is the rule. Second, Linux is a multi-task system where having your disk heads flying around actually aids in accessing tasks, where the system can recognize "Gee, the heads are close to that one, lets grab that first then move over and get the rest." Opportunistic, as it were. In closing, back in 1995 when I first asked this same question, the folks at the time suggested that the hazards of running the defrag far outweighed the possible minor benefits. Curt- On Tuesday 25 May 2004 13:45, Provost, Stephane was heard to say: > Hi again, > > I also want to defrag my drive. When I ran e2defrag, it said the > drive should be unmounted (ok easy, I guess I'll need a bootdisk, I > want to defrag /dev/hda0) and also I'll have to run the bootloader > configuration tool because the image may have moved. > > What does the latter part mean ? I thought the kernel image was > just a file and the bootloader lived in the MBR no matter what ? > What is the magical instruction to reconfigure lilo ? I don't want > to screw the system up and not be able to reboot (gasp). > > Thanks ! > > --Stéphane - -- September 11th, 2001 The proudest day for gun control and central planning advocates in American history -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iQEVAwUBQLOVBy9Y35yItIgBAQHhWgf9HsAyiR7+H+m5gs58lBRvHg+AjOUteV4Y jUoaDl+yqfupYIJ/FLJNyyZGuaTAm3rnwxcqONz/vi4CFUiq3r/6VEAGtnby3Ia+ LghB5bGkbcfef5hRzePP/mcGquXSWiIVwyn73uqhsNOPLAoxpew4ustQGEKFLBGQ 0mfk2HthZaRv9tHLDVyEFoAoIuv2kEAgzQVM0r69psX5+V/GCAerboOHAmA9v91T NCyUCK/Eg8T9tLgdbldWJnHiQE8DYAAUajS2pw+hvewa/1yqeCD5H2rN444KVB4W w2me68xomnB6Hrn8qtsMuuKTzbczE7Bm18jSrJLO4Umm3YlO0ZAxSQ== =PDtv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
