For a very long time, ntfs was _maybe_ readable from Linux.
I cant consider it _maybe_, for a long time its been readable reliably.
Then, as I understand, it got somewhat better to the extent that ntfs
filesystems could be created, which made it possible to move the things
from one partition to another. I'm not sure whether defragmenting was
required, or perhaps just recommended. I suspect the latter.
I would have to knock my head into the wall a few more times today to recall
the order of things, but at first defrag and checkdisk were requirements and
to some extent they still are
Now for a few months I think there has been some claims of further
breakthroughs, namely achieving writability.
its been a lot longer than a few months
The current tools to achieve this are
ntfs-3g http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
latest is ntfs-3g-1.417.tgz, released on April 16, 2007
and also ntfsprogs from the Linux NTFS project
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/
....
All the above are available as packages, at least for fedora. I suspect
for deb/ubu and suse as well.
donno could be.
Evidently it is unusual for the low-level filesystem operations to be
provided in userspace. I don't know the details, but I suspect a
userspace fs would not be considered as secure (or reliable) as a kernel
fs. Maybe it's just awaiting more testing or demand -- or perhaps there
are still some sticking issues?
"As of late 2006, Captive NTFS is no longer the only Free read/write
NTFS solution for Linux. ntfs-3g is a FUSE based driver with almost
complete NTFS write support which unlike Captive NTFS does not require
any third party proprietary software to function.
the proprietary software is simply the windows drivers, its mode is to use
them in a way like vmware. your not magically granted license to use them,
you are supposed to have a copy of WinHozed version something that includes
ntfs support. but you can download them for free from M$ or mount the ntfs
partition ro and copy them to a location off the partition to remount rw
with those drivers in place. allowing them to do all the work, this means
files get writen and read just as if windows was doing the work with the
wishful thinking that everything works as expected, which as I have been
using it for years can say yea it works most of the time, when it doesnt,
usually it just forgets to check the "clean unmount" flag so when booting
into windows you get the checkdisk warning. i have not seen a noticeable
difference in fragmentation vs windows which one should expect with the code
is being re-used. other problems exist, most are just general
anoyances.overall this is the best method I have found.
All this sounds quite promising to me. The remarks about testing and
performance on the ntfs-3g site also seem encouraging -- at least upon
my brief scan.
i rarely consider write performance with linux on ntfs, i do however check
out read speeds, and ive tried several methods and found no real difference
in long scattered processing of constant random reads over periods of
hours(actual work being done not a 'test program'), no method reads
realiably faster than the next. same data same drives the fastest is to get
it off of NTFS and then process it.
Anybody know any more about this?
sure ask away, If i remember ill go into more detail after i wake up later
today as again today has turned into tomorrow.
richard reynolds
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
