Operation Manual

1
Select the partition.
2
Click Edit to edit the partition and set the parameters:
File System ID
Even if you do not want to format the partition at this stage, assign it a le system
ID to ensure that the partition is registered correctly. Typical values are Linux,
Linux swap, Linux LVM, and Linux RAID.
File System
To change the partition le system, click Format Partition and select le system
type in the File System list.
openSUSE supports several types of lesystems. Btrfs is the Linux lesystem
of choice because of its advanced features. It supports copy-on-write functional-
ity, creating snapshots, multi-device spanning, subvolumes, and other useful
techniques. ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, and Ext3 are journaling le systems. These
le systems are able to restore the system very quickly after a system crash,
utilizing write processes logged during the operation. Ext2 is not a journaling
le system, but it is adequate for smaller partitions because it does not require
much disk space for management.
Swap is a special format that allows the partition to be used as a virtual memory.
Create a swap partition of at least 256 MB. However, if you use up your swap
space, consider adding more memory to your system instead of adding more
swap space.
WARNING: Changing the le system
Changing the le system and reformatting partitions irreversibly deletes
all data from the partition.
Encrypt Device
If you activate the encryption, all data is written to the hard disk in encrypted
form. This increases the security of sensitive data, but reduces the system speed,
as the encryption takes some time to process. More information about the en-
cryption of le systems is provided in Chapter 10, Encrypting Partitions and
Files (↑Security Guide).
Advanced Disk Setup 79