If ex2 is to ex3 what FAT32 is to...

[Somethin_Cool]

Er... if ex3 is ex2 + index file... and that solves so many problems....

where is the small adjustment to FAT32 that makes it indexed and thus acceptable... and thus read/write-able by any OS?

Also.. since the win2k source is leaked, there must be a way to say "Ok linux, from now on you're going to use the microsoft NTFS driver"

? no?
Thanks guys. New to this, and so much stuff seems like it should be obvious

[Flatline]

There isn't any indexing for FAT32, as far as I know. NTFS introduced journaled file systems to the Windows world.

FAT32 is read-write for pretty much every OS already.

If a distro maker included the Microsoft NTFS driver, Microsoft would sue the pants off of them and put them out of business.

[Somethin_Cool]

Yes they would, but WINE has an option to use windows DLLs to make it work better. Shouldn't the kernel have a similar option for the windows ntfs driver? I'd like to be able to copy my NTFS driver file to my linux partiton. I may only be allowed one copy per machine, but if windows is going, then I only have one copy on my machine

If I can't move the driver file for convenience, i'd just like to point to it. Does anyone know how to do any of that? In simple terms that don't assume I know any more than afew commands like cd and cp and dpkg and mount.. and some others. so far. it's only day 5.

Incidently, I keep reading "don't write to NTFS. linux will break it unless it's exactly the same filename and number of bytes". This is wrong then?

[Flatline]

Native linux NTFS write support is dodgy at best. You can use your Windows system files to access NTFS partitions read-write if you use captive ntfs http://freshmeat.net/projects/captive/ but you are not allowed to distribute those system files.

[mattlso]

Although the Linux NTFS driver is experimental, I have personally used it
alot, they just say this to cover their backs I have never had any problems
with it, for both read and write.

Regards

[andrewdodd13]

Er... if ex3 is ex2 + index file... and that solves so many problems....

FAT16 is more like ext2 in your comparison, even though ext2 is a bit better. FAT32 is ext3 in the comparision, but ext3 is much better . NTFS is like reiser, totally different structure.

[Flatline]

FAT32 is ext3 in the comparision, but ext3 is much better Smile. NTFS is like reiser,

Actually, I would compare ext2 to FAT32 since ext2 has native support for large filesystems (FAT16 didn't). I would compare ext3 to NTFS, since ext3 is a journaled file system and NTFS is the filesystem that introduced journaling to the Windows world. It's by no means an exact comparison, but I think it is slightly more accurate.

[bigtomrodney]

Yep remember that ext3 is ext2 with journaling - you can actually mount ext3 with ext2 drivers but you won't have access to the journal. On the next clean mount with ext3 drivers the journal will attempt to repair itself IIRC.

Did you guys ever use the windows ext2/3 drivers. Not explore2fs, but the basic drivers you can get? They worked pretty well for me when I had windows on my box.