Fstransform
By Tim Schürmann
Once you opt for a filesystem, it cannot be changed easily – especially if you already have files on it. Massimiliano Ghilardi changed this with the small Fstransform toolkit: One command is all it takes to change the filesystem.
Filesystems are responsible for how files are stored on hard drives. Unfortunately, a number of them currently are out there vying for that right. On Linux, ext4 is currently popular, with Btrfs waiting in the wings as its replacement. Windows uses NTFS, and its ancestor, FAT32, is particularly prevalent on USB sticks.
Normally, you decide which filesystem to use when you install Linux – if the distribution doesn’t take this decision out of your hands. Then, once the system is in place on the disk, making a change is difficult: To be on the safe side, you have to copy the files to a different disk, then reformat the hard disk completely, and finally copy all the files again and hope all the file attributes have been retained.
The command-line programs of the Fstransform toolkit, however, let you convert one filesystem to another. This means a second hard disk is no longer necessary for intermediate storage. Unfortunately, the Fstransform toolkit also has a few drawbacks.