High contrast or some linux distro

Press 

Left alt + left shift + Print screen keys on your keyboard (if prompted press enter)and watch yor xp

go crazy...

Don't worry repeat the same to regain your normal theme.

Windows jokes and sayings2

Computers are like air conditioners, they stop working properly if you open Windows. 

My SPARCstation has air condition. No need to open windows. 

Windows Source Code 

Windows means "Work is never done on Windows systems" 

Customer: I'm running Windows...
Helpdesk: Yes...
Customer: ...and now my computer stopped working !
Helpdesk: Yes, you already said that. 

Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. 

"Windows for dummies", another term of "this sentence no verb" 

Micro$not broke Volkswagen's world record: Volkswagen only made 22 million bugs ! 

IBM creates Operating Systems - MS-DOSn't 

Have you reinstalled your Windows today ? 

How do you fix all Windows bugs at once ? 
mke2fs /dev/sda1
deltree /y \

Windows the most popular virus on the market today. 

Windows - Plug and pray... 

Windows - The colorful clown suit for DOS 

Windows - a solitaire game that requires 16 MB and HD 

Windows - The best $89 solitaire game you can buy !
BTW: Like Unix freaks like the logout in the .login file,
Windows users like the SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\SOL.EXE line in their SYSTEM.INI file. %-)) 

Windows - so intuitive you only need a meg of help files ! 

If Windows is user-friendly, why do you need a 678-page manual ? 

"Fer sail cheep, Windows spel chekcer, wurks grate" 

The word "Windows" is a word out of an old dialect of the Apaches. It means: "White man staring through glass-screen onto an hourglass..." 

Windows =Waste in DOS WorkSpace 

Bang on the LEFT side of your computer to restart Windows 

Alt-F4. Just do it. 

C:\ONGRTLNS.W95 

Double your drive space: Delete Windows ! 

Micro$not is to Software as McDonalds is to Cuisine 

Does someone know the cheats for Windows ? 

This is an airconditioned room - Do not open Windows ! 

This virus requires Micro$not Windows 

Linux VirusScan -- "Windows found: Remove it ? [Y,Y]" 

Favorite Windoze game: "Guess what this icon does ?" 

Windows95 - crash compatible on Windows 3.x 

Windows NT - Nice Try 

Windows - a virus with mouse support 

Windows is for fun, Linux is for getting things done 

Windows vs Linux = Michael Jackson vs Mike Tyson 

The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a dialog box and
lets you press 'OK' first. 

Micro$not is not the answer. Micro$not is the question. "No" is the answer ! 

McAfee-Question: Is Windows a virus ?
No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do: 
They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.
Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.
Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.
Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.
Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2.) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences:
Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.
So Windows is not a virus. It's a bug. 

Last words of a Windows user: 
Why does that work now ?
Where do I have to click now ? - There ?
Guess what this icon does...
Message box: "Data not completely delete ? Yes - No" --- User: "No - ey - Yes"

Micro$not gives you Windows... Linux gives you the whole house 

Some windows were made to be broken 

Turn your 486 into a Gameboy: Type WIN at C:\> 

Data to Picard: "No, Captain, I do NOT run WINDOWS !" 

Bugs come in through open Windows 

Windows will also have artificial intelligence, e.g.: 
Unable to FORMAT A: Having a go at C:
Can't Compress Hard Drive but don't worry I'll delete all files over size 50,000 that'll give you some space.

How do you make Windows faster ? --- Throw it harder ! 

Windows95 is out ! (PC Magazine, April 2013) 

Windows95: New look, same multicrashing 

Windows95 will be released as soon as Windows 3.1 finishes loading 

Windows - Every function is a restart function... 

Windows does really have preemptive Multitasking: It can boot and crash at the same time. 

Windows NT - Insert wallet into Drive A: and press any key to empty 

Windows NT ? New Technology ? I don't think so... 

Windows - Just another pain in the glass 

Windows - Turn your Pentium into an XT... 

Windows - The Gates of hell 

Windows - From the people who brought you EDLIN ! 

Windows - a XT emulator for an AT 

If Windows sucked it would be good for something 

DOS is just an operating system that runs Windows 

DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1 - A turtle and its shell 

Windows Multitasking - screwing up several things at once 

Windows found - remove ? (Y)es (S)ure (F)ine (O)K 

Windows has the ability to screw up 2 things at the same time ! 

If I wanted Windows, I'd live in a greenhouse ! 

Micro$not's marketing: "Windows is SEMI-shareware" 

Are you using Windows or is that just an XT ? 

Have you crashed your Windows today ? 

Relax... you are entering a windows free zone 

Linux... Opens up Windows, shuts up Gates 

New from McAfee: WinScan - Removes all Windows programs 

New Windows 4.0: programmed in Turbo Logo++ 

My latest screen saver: Curtains for Windows 

If Windows 95 doesn't start shipping soon, it might be Curtains 95. 

Masochist: Windows programmer with a smile ! 

I'll never forget the 1st time I ran Windows, but I'm trying... 

I still miss Windows, but my aim is getting better 

I can't wait for EDLIN to be ported for Windows 

Father, forgive me, I've been caught using Windows... 

Exhibitionists love Windows 

Despite my car having windows, it still isn't mouse driven ! 

Breaking Windows isn't just for kids anymore... 

Beat me, whip me, make me use Windows ! 

A computer without Windows is like a fish without a bicycle 

Difference between a virus and windows ? Viruses rarely fail. 

Newsflash: Micro$not announces Visual Edlin for Windows 

Time on your hands ? Get Windows ! 

Hiroshima '45 - Tschernobyl '86 - Windows '95 

What's the best of Windows ? The deinstaller ! 

Why is the Pentium 2000 so fast ? - It's for booting faster, if Windows crashed again. 

What is the difference between Jurassic Park and Micro$not ? - One is an over-rated high tech theme park based on prehistoric information and populated mostly by dinosaurs, the other is a Steven Spielberg movie. 

How many Windows PC owners does it take to change a lightbulb ? Just one, as long as you explain it's Plug'n'Play... they get confused if it doesn't come with a driver disk... 

How do Micro$not employees exchange a bulb ? Not at all... Bill Gates declares darkness as a standard. 

Help ! There are Windows everywhere ! In my car, my house 

Ever noticed how fast Windows runs ? Neither did I ! 

Mouse not present - click twice to continue... 

Who the fuck is General Failure ? And why is he reading my harddisk ? 

What's the difference between windows and highly destructive unstoppable virus ?
About 90 Megs of hard disk space. 

Coming soon: EDLIN for Windows 

I've got two Windows hardware emulators ! Really ! They works much more reliable than the original: one for Windows 3.11, one for Windows 95. Unfortunately they have superscriped the emulator keys wrongly, so that on the Windows 3.11 emulator key "TURBO" and on the Windows 95 emulator is written "RESET"... But doesn't matter, works great.

Windows, it's not pretty, it's not ugly, but it's pretty ugly.

Source:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gelderen/micros/texts/jokes.html

Windows jokes and sayings

Macs are for those who don't want to know why their computer works.

Linux is for those who want to know why their computer works.

DOS is for those who want to know why their computer doesn't work.

Windows is for those who don't want to know why their computer doesn't work.

Why did Microsoft give the name "Windows" to its operating software?

If you had so many bugs, you would throw it out the window too!

No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

1. They replicate quickly. ... Okay, Windows does that.

2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so. ... Okay, Windows does that.

3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk. ... Okay, Windows does that too.

4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. ... Sigh.. Windows does that, too.

Computers are like air conditioners, they stop working properly if you open Windows.

If Windows vista is the answer, how stupid must have been the question?

They say when you play that Microsoft CD backward you can hear satanic messages ... but that's nothing. If you play it forward it will install Windows.

Customer: "How much do Windows cost?"

Tech Support: "Windows costs about $100."

Customer: "Oh, that's kind of expensive. Can I buy just one window?"

In a world without walls and fences - who needs Windows and Gates?

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated:

"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating (by Mr. Welch himself):

"If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1) For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2) Every time they painted new lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
3) Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4) Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5) Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But then you would have to buy more seats.
6) Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7) The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8) New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9) The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
10) Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11) GM would also require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12) Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13) You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

Use joystick as a mouse

Ever wondered using your joystick as a replacement for your mouse......

I recently tried out a trial software named Joymouse

It lets you use your joystick as a sidekick for your mouse.Even though you cannot edit the defaulty button layout in the trial version,you can play around a lot

Here is the link...

Download

 

A-Z about filesystems

File system

In computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). It is distinguished from a directory service and registry.

More formally, a file system is a special-purpose database for the storage, organization, manipulation, and retrieval of data.Contents

Aspects of file systems

Most file systems make use of an underlying data storage device that offers access to an array of fixed-size blocks, sometimes called sectors, generally a power of 2 in size (512 bytes or 1, 2, or 4 KiB are most common). The file system software is responsible for organizing these sectors into files and directories, and keeping track of which sectors belong to which file and which are not being used. Most file systems address data in fixed-sized units called "clusters" or "blocks" which contain a certain number of disk sectors (usually 1-64). This is the smallest logical amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file.

However, file systems need not make use of a storage device at all. A file system can be used to organize and represent access to any data, whether it be stored or dynamically generated (e.g., procfs).


File names

Whether the file system has an underlying storage device or not, file systems typically have directories which associate file names with files, usually by connecting the file name to an index in a file allocation table of some sort, such as the FAT in a DOS file system, or an inode in a Unix-like file system. Directory structures may be flat, or allow hierarchies where directories may contain subdirectories. In some file systems, file names are structured, with special syntax for filename extensions and version numbers. In others, file names are simple strings, and per-file metadata is stored elsewhere.


Metadata

Other bookkeeping information is typically associated with each file within a file system. The length of the data contained in a file may be stored as the number of blocks allocated for the file or as an exact byte count. The time that the file was last modified may be stored as the file's timestamp. Some file systems also store the file creation time, the time it was last accessed, and the time that the file's meta-data was changed. (Note that many early PC operating systems did not keep track of file times.) Other information can include the file's device type (e.g., block, character, socket, subdirectory, etc.), its owner user-ID and group-ID, and its access permission settings (e.g., whether the file is read-only, executable, etc.).

Arbitrary attributes can be associated on advanced file systems, such as XFS, ext2/ext3, some versions of UFS, and HFS+, using extended file attributes. This feature is implemented in the kernels of Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X operating systems, and allows metadata to be associated with the file at the file system level. This, for example, could be the author of a document, the character encoding of a plain-text document, or a checksum.


Hierarchical file systems

The hierarchical file system was an early research interest of Dennis Ritchie of Unix fame; previous implementations were restricted to only a few levels, notably the IBM implementations, even of their early databases like IMS. After the success of Unix, Ritchie extended the file system concept to every object in his later operating system developments, such as Plan 9 and Inferno.

[edit]
Facilities

Traditional file systems offer facilities to create, move and delete both files and directories. They lack facilities to create additional links to a directory (hard links in Unix), rename parent links (".." in Unix-like OS), and create bidirectional links to files.

Traditional file systems also offer facilities to truncate, append to, create, move, delete and in-place modify files. They do not offer facilities to prepend to or truncate from the beginning of a file, let alone arbitrary insertion into or deletion from a file. The operations provided are highly asymmetric and lack the generality to be useful in unexpected contexts. For example, interprocess pipes in Unix have to be implemented outside of the file system because the pipes concept does not offer truncation from the beginning of files.


Secure access

Secure access to basic file system operations can be based on a scheme of access control lists or capabilities. Research has shown access control lists to be difficult to secure properly, which is why research operating systems tend to use capabilities.[citation needed] Commercial file systems still use access control lists. see: secure computing


Types of file systems

File system types can be classified into disk file systems, network file systems and special purpose file systems.


Disk file systems

A disk file system is a file system designed for the storage of files on a data storage device, most commonly a disk drive, which might be directly or indirectly connected to the computer. Examples of disk file systems include FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT), NTFS, HFS and HFS+, HPFS, ext2, ext3, ISO 9660, ODS-5, and UDF. Some disk file systems are journaling file systems or versioning file systems.


Flash file systems


A flash file system is a file system designed for storing files on flash memory devices. These are becoming more prevalent as the number of mobile devices is increasing, and the capacity of flash memories catches up with hard drives.

While a block device layer can emulate a disk drive so that a disk file system can be used on a flash device, this is suboptimal for several reasons:
Erasing blocks: Flash memory blocks have to be explicitly erased before they can be written to. The time taken to erase blocks can be significant, thus it is beneficial to erase unused blocks while the device is idle.
Random access: Disk file systems are optimized to avoid disk seeks whenever possible, due to the high cost of seeking. Flash memory devices impose no seek latency.
Wear levelling: Flash memory devices tend to wear out when a single block is repeatedly overwritten; flash file systems are designed to spread out writes evenly.

Log-structured file systems have all the desirable properties for a flash file system. Such file systems include JFFS2 and YAFFS.


Database file systems

A new concept for file management is the concept of a database-based file system. Instead of, or in addition to, hierarchical structured management, files are identified by their characteristics, like type of file, topic, author, or similar metadata.


Transactional file systems

Each disk operation may involve changes to a number of different files and disk structures. In many cases, these changes are related, meaning that it is important that they all be executed at the same time. Take for example a bank sending another bank some money electronically. The bank's computer will "send" the transfer instruction to the other bank and also update its own records to indicate the transfer has occurred. If for some reason the computer crashes before it has had a chance to update its own records, then on reset, there will be no record of the transfer but the bank will be missing some money.

Transaction processing introduces the guarantee that at any point while it is running, a transaction can either be finished completely or reverted completely (though not necessarily both at any given point). This means that if there is a crash or power failure, after recovery, the stored state will be consistent. (Either the money will be transferred or it will not be transferred, but it won't ever go missing "in transit".)

This type of file system is designed to be fault tolerant, but may incur additional overhead to do so.

Journaling file systems are one technique used to introduce transaction-level consistency to filesystem structures.


Network file systems
Main article: Network file system

A network file system is a file system that acts as a client for a remote file access protocol, providing access to files on a server. Examples of network file systems include clients for the NFS, AFS, SMB protocols, and file-system-like clients for FTP and WebDAV.


Special purpose file systems
Main article: special file system

A special purpose file system is basically any file system that is not a disk file system or network file system. This includes systems where the files are arranged dynamically by software, intended for such purposes as communication between computer processes or temporary file space.

Special purpose file systems are most commonly used by file-centric operating systems such as Unix. Examples include the procfs (/proc) file system used by some Unix variants, which grants access to information about processes and other operating system features.

Deep space science exploration craft, like Voyager I & II used digital tape-based special file systems. Most modern space exploration craft like Cassini-Huygens used Real-time operating system file systems or RTOS influenced file systems. The Mars Rovers are one such example of an RTOS file system, important in this case because they are implemented in flash memory.

Crash counting is a feature of a file system designed as an alternative to journaling. It is claimed[who?] that it maintains consistency across crashes without the code complexity of implementing journaling.[citation needed]
File systems and operating systems

Most operating systems provide a file system, as a file system is an integral part of any modern operating system. Early microcomputer operating systems' only real task was file management — a fact reflected in their names (see DOS). Some early operating systems had a separate component for handling file systems which was called a disk operating system. On some microcomputers, the disk operating system was loaded separately from the rest of the operating system. On early operating systems, there was usually support for only one, native, unnamed file system; for example, CP/M supports only its own file system, which might be called "CP/M file system" if needed, but which didn't bear any official name at all.

Because of this, there needs to be an interface provided by the operating system software between the user and the file system. This interface can be textual (such as provided by a command line interface, such as the Unix shell, or OpenVMS DCL) or graphical (such as provided by a graphical user interface, such as file browsers). If graphical, the metaphor of the folder, containing documents, other files, and nested folders is often used (see also: directory and folder).

Flat file systems

In a flat file system, there are no subdirectories—everything is stored at the same (root) level on the media, be it a hard disk, floppy disk, etc. While simple, this system rapidly becomes inefficient as the number of files grows, and makes it difficult for users to organize data into related groups.

Like many small systems before it, the original Apple Macintosh featured a flat file system, called Macintosh File System. Its version of Mac OS was unusual in that the file management software (Macintosh Finder) created the illusion of a partially hierarchical filing system on top of MFS. This structure meant that every file on a disk had to have a unique name, even if it appeared to be in a separate folder. MFS was quickly replaced with Hierarchical File System, which supported real directories.

A recent addition to the flat file system family is Amazon's S3, a remote storage service, which is intentionally simplistic to allow users the ability to customize how their data is stored. The only constructs are buckets (imagine a disk drive of unlimited size) and objects (similar, but not identical to the standard concept of a file). Advance file management is allowed by being able to use nearly any character (including '/') in the objects name, and the ability to select subsets of the bucket's content based off identical prefixes.


File systems under Unix-like operating systems


Unix-like operating systems create a virtual file system, which makes all the files on all the devices appear to exist in a single hierarchy. This means, in those systems, there is one root directory, and every file existing on the system is located under it somewhere. Furthermore, the root directory does not have to be in any physical place. It might not be on your first hard drive - it might not even be on your computer. Unix-like systems can use a network shared resource as its root directory.

Unix-like systems assign a device name to each device, but this is not how the files on that device are accessed. Instead, to gain access to files on another device, you must first inform the operating system where in the directory tree you would like those files to appear. This process is called mounting a file system. For example, to access the files on a CD-ROM, one must tell the operating system "Take the file system from this CD-ROM and make it appear under such-and-such directory". The directory given to the operating system is called the mount point - it might, for example, be /media. The /media directory exists on many Unix systems (as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) and is intended specifically for use as a mount point for removable media such as CDs, DVDs and like floppy disks. It may be empty, or it may contain subdirectories for mounting individual devices. Generally, only the administrator (i.e. root user) may authorize the mounting of file systems.

Unix-like operating systems often include software and tools that assist in the mounting process and provide it new functionality. Some of these strategies have been coined "auto-mounting" as a reflection of their purpose.
In many situations, file systems other than the root need to be available as soon as the operating system has booted. All Unix-like systems therefore provide a facility for mounting file systems at boot time. System administrators define these file systems in the configuration file fstab or vfstab in Solaris Operating Environment, which also indicates options and mount points.
In some situations, there is no need to mount certain file systems at boot time, although their use may be desired thereafter. There are some utilities for Unix-like systems that allow the mounting of predefined file systems upon demand.
Removable media have become very common with microcomputer platforms. They allow programs and data to be transferred between machines without a physical connection. Common examples include USB flash drives, CD-ROMs, and DVDs. Utilities have therefore been developed to detect the presence and availability of a medium and then mount that medium without any user intervention.
Progressive Unix-like systems have also introduced a concept called supermounting; see, for example, the Linux supermount-ng project. For example, a floppy disk that has been supermounted can be physically removed from the system. Under normal circumstances, the disk should have been synchronized and then unmounted before its removal. Provided synchronization has occurred, a different disk can be inserted into the drive. The system automatically notices that the disk has changed and updates the mount point contents to reflect the new medium. Similar functionality is found on standard Windows machines.
A similar innovation preferred by some users is the use of autofs, a system that, like supermounting, eliminates the need for manual mounting commands. The difference from supermount, other than compatibility in an apparent greater range of applications such as access to file systems on network servers, is that devices are mounted transparently when requests to their file systems are made, as would be appropriate for file systems on network servers, rather than relying on events such as the insertion of media, as would be appropriate for removable media.

[edit]
File systems under Linux

Linux supports many different file systems, but common choices for the system disk include the ext* family (such as ext2 and ext3), XFS, JFS and ReiserFS.


File systems under Mac OS X

Mac OS X uses a file system that it inherited from classic Mac OS called HFS Plus. HFS Plus is a metadata-rich and case preserving file system. Due to the Unix roots of Mac OS X, Unix permissions were added to HFS Plus. Later versions of HFS Plus added journaling to prevent corruption of the file system structure and introduced a number of optimizations to the allocation algorithms in an attempt to defragment files automatically without requiring an external defragmenter.

Filenames can be up to 255 characters. HFS Plus uses Unicode to store filenames. On Mac OS X, the filetype can come from the type code, stored in file's metadata, or the filename.

HFS Plus has three kinds of links: Unix-style hard links, Unix-style symbolic links and aliases. Aliases are designed to maintain a link to their original file even if they are moved or renamed; they are not interpreted by the file system itself, but by the File Manager code in userland.

Mac OS X also supports the UFS file system, derived from the BSD Unix Fast File System via NeXTSTEP. However, as of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), Mac OS X can no longer be installed on a UFS volume, nor can a pre-Leopard system installed on a UFS volume be upgraded to Leopard. [1]


File systems under Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs was originally designed to extend some of Unix's good points, and to introduce some new ideas of its own while fixing the shortcomings of Unix.

With respect to file systems, the Unix system of treating things as files was continued, but in Plan 9, everything is treated as a file, and accessed as a file would be (i.e., no ioctl or mmap). Perhaps surprisingly, while the file interface is made universal it is also simplified considerably, for example symlinks, hard links and suid are made obsolete, and an atomic create/open operation is introduced. More importantly the set of file operations becomes well defined and subversions of this like ioctl are eliminated.

Secondly, the underlying 9P protocol was used to remove the difference between local and remote files (except for a possible difference in latency). This has the advantage that a device or devices, represented by files, on a remote computer could be used as though it were the local computer's own device(s). This means that under Plan 9, multiple file servers provide access to devices, classing them as file systems. Servers for "synthetic" file systems can also run in user space bringing many of the advantages of micro kernel systems while maintaining the simplicity of the system.

Everything on a Plan 9 system has an abstraction as a file; networking, graphics, debugging, authentication, capabilities, encryption, and other services are accessed via I-O operations on file descriptors. For example, this allows the use of the IP stack of a gateway machine without need of NAT, or provides a network-transparent window system without the need of any extra code.

Another example: a Plan-9 application receives FTP service by opening an FTP site. The ftpfs server handles the open by essentially mounting the remote FTP site as part of the local file system. With ftpfs as an intermediary, the application can now use the usual file-system operations to access the FTP site as if it were part of the local file system. A further example is the mail system which uses file servers that synthesize virtual files and directories to represent a user mailbox as /mail/fs/mbox. The wikifs provides a file system interface to a wiki.

These file systems are organized with the help of private, per-process namespaces, allowing each process to have a different view of the many file systems that provide resources in a distributed system.

The Inferno operating system shares these concepts with Plan 9.


File systems under Microsoft Windows

Windows makes use of the FAT and NTFS file systems.

The File Allocation Table (FAT) filing system, supported by all versions of Microsoft Windows, was an evolution of that used in Microsoft's earlier operating system (MS-DOS which in turn was based on 86-DOS). FAT ultimately traces its roots back to the short-lived M-DOS project and Standalone disk BASIC before it. Over the years various features have been added to it, inspired by similar features found on file systems used by operating systems such as Unix.

Older versions of the FAT file system (FAT12 and FAT16) had file name length limits, a limit on the number of entries in the root directory of the file system and had restrictions on the maximum size of FAT-formatted disks or partitions. Specifically, FAT12 and FAT16 had a limit of 8 characters for the file name, and 3 characters for the extension (such as .exe). This is commonly referred to as the 8.3 filename limit. VFAT, which was an extension to FAT12 and FAT16 introduced in Windows NT 3.5 and subsequently included in Windows 95, allowed long file names (LFN). FAT32 also addressed many of the limits in FAT12 and FAT16, but remains limited compared to NTFS.

NTFS, introduced with the Windows NT operating system, allowed ACL-based permission control. Hard links, multiple file streams, attribute indexing, quota tracking, compression and mount-points for other file systems (called "junctions") are also supported, though not all these features are well-documented.

Unlike many other operating systems, Windows uses a drive letter abstraction at the user level to distinguish one disk or partition from another. For example, the path C:\WINDOWS represents a directory WINDOWS on the partition represented by the letter C. The C drive is most commonly used for the primary hard disk partition, on which Windows is usually installed and from which it boots. This "tradition" has become so firmly ingrained that bugs came about in older versions of Windows which made assumptions that the drive that the operating system was installed on was C. The tradition of using "C" for the drive letter can be traced to MS-DOS, where the letters A and B were reserved for up to two floppy disk drives. Network drives may also be mapped to drive letters.


Data retrieval process

The operating system calls on the IFS (Installable File System) manager. The IFS calls on the correct FSD (File System Driver) in order to open the selected file from a choice of four FSDs that work with different storage systems—NTFS, VFAT, CDFS (for optical drives), and Network. The FSD gets the location on the disk for the first cluster of the file from the FAT (File Allocation Table), FAT32, VFAT (Virtual File Allocation Table), or, in the case of Windows NT based, the MFT (Master File Table). In short, the whole point of the FAT, FAT32, VFAT, or MFT is to map out all the files on the disk and record were they are located (which track and sector of the disk).

Source Wikipedia

Folder image

In windows xp the tumbnail view just shows 4 images from as icon of the folder.....

This may be random or from a set of algorithm. This however is not desirable in some cases .

You can Change this.

1)Choose an image the best describes the folder.....

2)rename it to folder...

3)Now the folder shows the image as its icon in thumbnail view

What is sector sparing?

  Low-level formatting also sets aside spare sectors not visible to the operating system. The controller can be told to replace each bad sector logically with one of the spare sectors. This scheme is known as sector sparing or forwarding.

What is the use of boot block?

For a computer to start running when powered up or rebooted it needs to have an initial program to run. This bootstrap program tends to be simple. It finds the operating system on the disk loads that kernel into memory and jumps to an initial address to begin the operating system execution. The full bootstrap program is stored in a partition called the boot blocks, at fixed location on the disk. A disk that has boot partition is called boot disk or system disk.

What is low-level formatting?

Before a disk can store data, it must be divided into sectors that the disk controller can read and write. This process is called low-level formatting or physical formatting. Low-level formatting fills the disk with a special data structure for each sector. The data structure for a sector consists of a header, a data area, and a trailer.

What are the various disk-scheduling algorithms?

The various disk-scheduling algorithms are
The various disk-scheduling algorithms are
aa. First Come First Served Scheduling
bb. Shortest Seek Time First Scheduling
cc. SCAN Scheduling
dd. C-SCAN Scheduling
ee. LOOK scheduling