ext.3 is the standard linux file system. It used to be ext2. Ext.3 has journalling which saves open files or soemthing to prevent corruption in case of an accidental power failure. Not just too sure how it works. ReiserFS had journalling before Ext3 did, but i dont find any difference between the speeds of the two.
www.tldp.org - the linux documentation project, it contains thousands of HOWTOs for anything about linux.... even using your linux box to make coffee.
You can also get lots of help from here,
www.linuxquestions.org ,
www.newtolinux.org.uk , and
http://voidmain.kicks-ass.netMost programs come with manual pages (called "man" pages) and to see them type "man program" replace program with whatever its actual name is.
and... (just to show up whoever told you the ways to shut down above)... There is several different ways to shut down your computer. You can use the command "shutdown -h now" to shut down, try "man shutdown" to see what all the options do but "-h" means halt and at the end of the shutdown command you must specify a time such as "now".
You can also use the runlevel way.... there is 6different runlevels in linux and normally you will be on runlevel 3, 4, or 5. 3 is normal without a GUI (graphic user interface), 4 and 5 are often the same and are just 3 with a GUI.
runlevel 2 usually takes off networking.
runlevel 1 doesnt run any unesacary things and is usually only used to repair stuff.
And runlevel 0 shuts down the computer
runlevel 6 reboots the computer.
To switch between runlevels you type "init x" where x is the runlevel you want.
So, to shutdown the computer you can type "init 0" and to restart you can type "init 6".