On Thu 04 Aug 2022 at 13:27:34 (-0400), gene heskett wrote: > On 8/4/22 10:47, pe...@easthope.ca wrote: > > From: Charles Curley <charlescur...@charlescurley.com> > > Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 13:39:00 -0600 > > > The preparation of any storage medium requires at least two steps. To > > > format means ... > > > > > > In another step one lays down a file system: ... > > Understood, at a superficial level at least. Haven't invented or > > implemented a file system. > > > > > Microsoft conflated the two, leading to much confusion over the > > > years. > > Even prominent software uses "format" loosely. Eg. Gparted > > > Partition > Format to > ... .
I searched my way through https://gparted.org/display-doc.php?name=help-manual and couldn't find any ambiguity. They use the term to mean what you want to call a "high-level format", "laying down a filesystem", or some neologism. > > If we really want to improve terminology we need to > > (1) understand intimately software such as gparted, > > (2) find or invent terms more specific than "format", > > (3) convince maintainers to fix the bugs (adopt the new terms) and > > (4) take credit for the revolutionary improvements. =8~) > > > > > Try mounting it from the command line, and watch the output. That will > > > show you whether it is being fscked. However, FAT has no ability to > > > store when it was last fscked, so I would wonder why it was being > > > fscked at all. > > In further observations, the problem is primarily in the old Fedora > > based OLPC XO system. Debian Bullseye usually recognizes and mounts > > the f.s. on the SD card with no difficulty. Rather than troubleshoot > > the obsolete system I'll continue an effort to make DebXO work on the > > XO 1.5 machine. Is this the X/Y problem's Z? > Having worked on a couple filesystems in a past life, all I can do is > say +100 Peter. > "format" is one of the most overloaded words in our vocabulary. Really? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/format https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/set Cheers, David.
