About NTFS support

[casiodude]

A friend of mine wants to dual boot Windows 2000 and linux and would like to be able to run his webserver in either OS but if he updates the webserver on one of the systems he doesn't want to keep having to update again on the other OS.


He prefers to run Windows 2000 on an NTFS partition and I know that there was a point when the Linux Kernel didn't support this. Does it now and if so which version ? also is it fully read write as well?

[jasonlambert]

I dont think linux can write to NTFS drives, it may be able to read from them but i am not sure.

I would partition the drive 3 ways:

Part1: Windows 2000 - NTFS
Part2: FAT partition - shared data drive (for web pages)
Part3: Linux


If you are running a database driven website, then it will not work. Stick with either win or lin.

Jason

[casiodude]

With regards database driven webserver are you refering to Mysql? if so why wouldn't this work, as Mysql is what my friend is using for windows, are these 2 different systems because of the OS?

[jasonlambert]

You would need the DB located on the FAT partition.

I dont know if windows MySQL can read Linux MySQL without some sort of conversion. - ie, can they both run off the same database files?

Jason

[flw]

This is not the answer to your question but if win2k ws fat32 you could use apache for win and linux and copy the pages and grapchis between the two.

[embro1001]

Well, the databases themselves (Linux and Windows, MySQL) should in the same format. You would have to put the database in the Windows partition, but it would have to be FAT, since Linux can't right to an NTFS. Other than that, he could then run Apache in Linux. But as to the copying thing, is it possible to use a symbolic link? or would that not work since the other file is not Linux native. I mean, could you make a symolic link called "index.php" in the base directory of the server that was linked to the real page on, say the real file in Windows?

[flw]

Using fat32 and Samba is the best file sharing method, with or without security, is the best way to share info between different system types.

[arachnyd]

so wait, if my harddrives were NTFS under XP now, and I wanted to install Linux as dual boot, Linux wouldnt be able to write to the harddrives?

[jasonlambert]

No, you can install linux, but it is possible that it wont be able to read/write to your NTFS partition, the linux partiton, though on the same physical hard disk, will be seperate in its own right.

Jason