MKFS.MINIX(8)

💾 MKFS.MINIX(8) — the system administration glow-up 💾

okay bestie, sit down, we're doing mkfs.minix today and it's genuinely one of my faves 🎀 it lives in the System Administration corner of the manual, section 8, and it's the girl who makes Minix filesystems happen. no cap.

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✨ NAME ✨

mkfs.minix — make a Minix filesystem 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mkfs.minix [options] device [size-in-blocks]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like, mkfs.minix creates a Linux MINIX filesystem on a device — and by "device" we usually mean a disk partition, iykyk 🫶

the device is usually shaped like one of these lil cuties:

/dev/hda[1-8] (IDE disk 1)
/dev/hdb[1-8] (IDE disk 2)
/dev/sda[1-8] (SCSI disk 1)
/dev/sdb[1-8] (SCSI disk 2)

the device can be a block device, or an image file of one — but honestly that's not enforced, so the tool isn't out here vibe-checking you. and on a character device? expect not much fun :-). literally. 💀

the size-in-blocks parameter is the size you want the filesystem to be, measured in blocks. it's only still here for backwards compatibility — main character energy from a previous era, we respect it. if you leave it out, the size gets determined automatically ✨ and just so you know, only block counts strictly greater than 10 and strictly less than 65536 are allowed. that's the range, periodt.

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -c, --check — check the device for bad blocks before creating the filesystem. if any show up, the count gets printed. 🕵️‍♀️
• -n, --namelength length — set the max length of filenames. rn the only allowable values are 14 and 30, for file system versions 1 and 2 respectively. version 3 allows only the value 60. the default is 30. ✨
• --lock[=mode] — use an exclusive BSD lock for the device or file being operated upon. the optional mode argument can be yes (1), no (0), or nonblock. if you omit the mode argument, it defaults to yes. this option overrides the environment variable $LOCK_BLOCK_DEVICE. the default is to not use any lock at all — but ngl, using a lock is recommended so you don't collide with systemd-udevd(8) or other tools. be a good citizen bestie 🫶
• -i, --inodes number — specify the number of inodes for the filesystem. 🔢
• -l, --badblocks filename — read the list of bad blocks from filename. the file has one bad-block number per line. the count of bad blocks read gets printed. 📝
• -1 — make a Minix version 1 filesystem. this is the default, so if you do nothing, this is the girl you get. 👑
• -2, -v — make a Minix version 2 filesystem.
• -3 — make a Minix version 3 filesystem.
• -h, --help — display help text and exit. classic.
• -V, --version — display version and exit. ⚠️ the long option cannot be combined with other options — it's a solo act, main character only, no plus-ones. 💅

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• LOCK_BLOCK_DEVICE=<mode> — use exclusive BSD lock. the mode is "1" or "0". see --lock for more details. 🔐

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

the exit status returned by mkfs.minix is one of the following:

• 0 — no errors 🎉
• 8 — operational error 😭
• 16 — usage or syntax error 🙈

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

fsck(8), mkfs(8), reboot(8)

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🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

for bug reports, use the issue tracker at <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>. tell them everything, bestie, they wanna know 💌

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🧚 AVAILABILITY 🧚

the mkfs.minix command is part of the util-linux package, which can be downloaded from the Linux Kernel Archive at <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. 🌸

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and that's the whole page, bestie — this one's from util-linux 2.42.4, dated 2026-09-21, and it's filed under MKFS.MINIX(8) so you can always find your way back. go make a filesystem, you're gonna slay 💖✨🎀