Chris Severn wrote:
> I'm still thinking whether I should use ext2 or ext3 though.
> If I use ext2 I can still mount the gentoo installation from the redhat
> one and have a bit of a play with config files during the day.

However the advantage to a fs such as ext3 is that it is journalled. To
the end user this means less downtime (during the filesystems
consistency check) if a crash occurs. Whilst an ext2 check can typically
take hours, an ext3 consistency check will take minutes.

And then there are the speed improvements over ext2 for everyday useage.

(I personally use reiserfs as I believe the developers really know their
stuff and have a great vision for the project.)

If all you want to do is edit config files from the redhat installation,
you can make a separate partition for /etc/, and use ext2 for that. You
should feel free to mix and match for your needs, after all, this is
Linux country

> One question - in the Gentoo install manual, the example they give is to
> use ext2 on /boot, but ext3 on /
> Is there any advantage to using ext2 on /boot ? Or is ext3 just as
> good/better here ?

The reason why they suggest ext2 is for similar reasons, the
compatibility/speed tradeoff. The /boot partition is very rarely
accessed but this access is vital if the system needs repairing (from a
rescue disk). Thus, since ext2 is supported by many kernel compilations,
it is the best choice for the job.

HTH,
--
Ben M.