# F2FS

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- File systems

F2FS (Flash-Friendly File System) is a file system intended for NAND-based flash memory equipped with Flash Transition Layer. Unlike JFFS or UBIFS it relies on FTL to handle write distribution. It is supported from kernel 3.8 onwards.

## Creating a F2FS partition

In order to create a F2FS partition, install f2fs-tools from the official repositories.

Create the partition:

    # mkfs.f2fs -l mylabel /dev/sdxY

where `/dev/sdxY` is the target volume to format in F2FS.

## Mounting a F2FS partition

The partition can then be mounted manually or via other mechanisms:

    # mount /dev/sdxY /mnt/foo

## Install Arch Linux on F2FS partition

Warning: If using F2FS as your root partition, you will need to add the following module to the `MODULES` line in your `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` file (FS#49380):

    MODULES="... crypto-crc32"

To enable checksum hardware acceleration, you need to compile `crc32c-intel` into kernel, or `crc32c-generic` will be loaded first.
Warning: If using GRUB your freshly installed system might not boot after reboot. As GRUB doesn't support F2FS it isn't able to extract the UUID (which is persistent across reboots) of your drive so it uses classic `/dev/sdXx` names instead (which are not guaranteed to be persistent across reboots). In this case you might have to manually edit `/boot/grub/grub.cfg` and replace `root=/dev/sdXx` with `root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx`; you can use the `blkid` command to get the UUID of your device.

With the latest installation media it is possible to install Arch linux with root located on a F2FS filesystem:

1. Create the root partition as F2FS as described in section #Creating a F2FS partition.
2. If your bootloader does not support F2FS, create a separate `/boot` partition using a filesystem that it does.
3. Continue with the installation procedure as per Installation guide#Mount the partitions until chrooted.
4. Install f2fs-tools on the newly installed system as well.
5. Regenerate the initramfs while chrooted.

Be sure to also check out the Installing Arch Linux on a USB key page if you're installing Arch on a USB flash drive. (In particular the part about editing `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` is important, otherwise your system won't boot.)

## Checking and repair

Checking and repairs to f2fs partitions are accomplished with `fsck.f2fs` provided by f2fs-tools. See the manpage for available switches.

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- File systems