From the course: Linux Tips

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Loop devices

Loop devices - Linux Tutorial

From the course: Linux Tips

Loop devices

- [Instructor] In this episode, I want to take a few minutes to talk about loop devices. A loop device is basically a file that contains a file system. So that means that you can move the file around the system or to other systems and take the file system along with it. We use these pretty widely, sometimes even without realizing it. Linux installations, for example, the ISO images that represent an optical disc are loop devices because they're a file that contains a file system. And Snaps, the portable applications that are becoming more popular lately, run from their own small loop devices containing their initial read-only file system. Loop devices are also used where portable encrypted file systems are needed, like in TrueCrypt, which was popular a while ago, and others. Other systems make use of loop app devices as well. macOS, for example, makes extensive use of what it calls disk images, which are files with a file system inside them, or loop devices. We can create a loop…

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