Re: does the linux support rootfs on vfat?

[Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>]

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 09:09:58AM +0100, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:

> On Sun, 2006-03-05 14:17:56 +0800, zhuzhenhua <zzh.hust@gmail.com> wrote:
> > if in my product based ide disk, i want to it to support the
> > u-disk(with vfat fs), and can i set the root fs as vfat too?
> > if use vfat as rootfs, what's disadvantage of the selection?
> 
> Well, most notably you won't have device nodes. Maybe a ram-backed
> filesystem mounted to /dev/ could solve that, but you'd probably need
> an initrd for that to do.

It's anso case-insensitive which may cause some further troubles.  It's
doesn't have proper inodes, no UNIX file modes, no UID / GID support (These
two can be kludges in awfully insufficient way through mount options), not
only lacks device special files but also no FIFO, no UNIX domain sockets,
no hard or soft links.  It's simply a sorry excuse for a useful filesystem.

  Ralf