A.3. Some Other Supported File Systems

Table A.1. “File System Types in Linux” summarizes some other file systems supported by Linux. They are supported mainly to ensure compatibility and interchange of data with different kinds of media or foreign operating systems.

Table A.1. File System Types in Linux

cramfsCompressed ROM file system: A compressed read-only file system for ROMs.
hpfsHigh Performance File System: the IBM OS/2 standard file system — only supported in read-only mode.
iso9660Standard file system on CD-ROMs.
minixThis file system originated from academic projects on operating systems and was the first file system used in Linux. Nowadays, it is used as a file system for floppy disks.
msdosfat, the file system originally used by DOS, is today used by various operating systems.
ncpfsfile system for mounting Novell volumes over networks.
nfsNetwork File System: Here, data can be stored on any machine in a network and access may be granted via a network.
smbfsServer Message Block: used by products such as Windows to enable file access over a network.
sysvUsed on SCO UNIX, Xenix, and Coherent (commercial UNIX systems for PCs).
ufsUsed by BSD, SunOS, and NeXTstep. Only supported in read-only mode.
umsdosUNIX on MSDOS: applied on top of a normal fat file system. Achieves UNIX functionality (permissions, links, long file names) by creating special files.
vfatVirtual FAT: extension of the fat file system (supports long file names).
ntfsWindows NT file system, read-only.