While helping a new user create an fs, I noticed that "mke2fs --help" shows [-T fs-type] as a possible argument... in my opinion, implying that you can do "-T ext3" or another filesystem type. What -T refers to is actually the usage-type (ie small, big, huge, default), as used in the gentoo handbook to make sure small ext* filesystems have enough inodes (-T small). mke2fs(8) man page correctly describes both, [ -t fs-type ] [ -T usage-type ]. As I see it, showing [-T fs-type] is flat out WRONG. # mke2fs Usage: mke2fs [-c|-l filename] [-b block-size] [-f fragment-size] [-i bytes-per-inode] [-I inode-size] [-J journal-options] [-G meta group size] [-N number-of-inodes] [-m reserved-blocks-percentage] [-o creator-os] [-g blocks-per-group] [-L volume-label] [-M last-mounted-directory] [-O feature[,...]] [-r fs-revision] [-E extended-option[,...]] [-T fs-type] [-U UUID] [-jnqvFKSV] device [blocks-count] # man mke2fs -P "head -n14" MKE2FS(8) MKE2FS(8) NAME mke2fs - create an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem SYNOPSIS mke2fs [ -c | -l filename ] [ -b block-size ] [ -f fragment-size ] [ -g blocks-per- group ] [ -G number-of-groups ] [ -i bytes-per-inode ] [ -I inode-size ] [ -j ] [ -J journal-options ] [ -N number-of-inodes ] [ -n ] [ -m reserved-blocks-percentage ] [ -o creator-os ] [ -O feature[,...] ] [ -q ] [ -r fs-revision-level ] [ -E extended- options ] [ -v ] [ -F ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -M last-mounted-directory ] [ -S ] [ -t fs-type ] [ -T usage-type ] [ -U UUID ] [ -V ] device [ blocks-count ]
put a simple sed in my src_prepare to fix it locally, not sure how "proper" it is: sed -i -e 's/fs-type/usage-type/' misc/mke2fs.c po/*
i've sent a patch upstream for the issue. i don't think it critical to require adding explicitly to the ebuilds ... just wait for the next release.