Secure Digital card/Reformatting/Ext2

Convert an SD card from FAT to ext2

How to convert an SD card from FAT to ext2 filesystem on an OLPC XO laptop.

Warning: loses the contents of the SD card, and may not provide best performance. Use only if the ext2 filesystem is more appropriate for your application, such as when symbolic links or case sensitivity is needed.

Ingredients

• an OLPC XO laptop with OLPC OS 13.2.0,
• an SD card with factory filesystem of type FAT,

Recipe

• start Terminal activity,
• install GParted, type this:

sudo yum install -y gparted

• insert the SD card,
• start GParted, type this:

sudo gparted

• wait for the GParted window to appear,
• select the external SD card; GParted -> Devices -> /dev/mmcblk0 or /dev/mmcblk1,
• select the partition,
• unmount the partition; Partition -> Unmount,
• delete the partition; Partition -> Delete,
• create the filesystem; Partition -> New, File system: ext2, Label: x, Add,
• apply all pending operations; Edit -> Apply All Operations,
• stop GParted; GParted -> Quit,
• eject and reinsert the SD card, or reboot,
• permanently change ownership of the filesystem, type this:

sudo chown --recursive $USER:$USER /run/media/olpc/x