Lack of communication between Windows and Linux

[giavvns]

Hi all,

On my PC I have both Windows XP and Linux SuSe 10.0 installed. My problem
is that although I see the Windows from Linux, nevertheless I cannot transfer
data from and to Windows; it shows me a "Read-only file system" message.

What can I do to override this?

Thanks

[smolloy]

This is probably because the windows disc has the NTFS filesystem, and linux (by default) can only read from this and not write to it. It is posible to enable NTFS writing (I can't remember the name of the software that does it), but I'm not sure how robust it is -- you might end up losing the data on your windows partition. :S

[oldcpu]

although I see the Windows from Linux, nevertheless I cannot transfer data from and to Windows; it shows me a "Read-only file system" message.

As smolloy noted, linux PC's typically have difficulty in accessing NTFS.

If you have a 32-bit SuSE, then there is a recent BIG improvement in creating a fast native Ntfs Driver For Linux:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/f...&forum_id=2697

Thus far only a 32-bit version exists. The driver is purportedly very reliable, and very fast in the testing that has taken place to date.

There is a plan to integrate it into the linux-ntfs project:
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

Initially, until I managed to get it loading automatically via the FSTAB, as root, I used to type a command (or two) from a bash shell, and that enables the driver:

ntfs-3g /dev/hdb1 /windows/E -o silent,umask=0,local=en_US.utf8

and if that gave me a failure to mount (and it usually does fail the first time), I then typed the work around:

modprobe fuse

and I then repeated the initial line:
ntfs-3g /dev/hdb1 /windows/E -o silent,umask=0,local=en_US.utf8

To unmount I typed:
fusermount -u /windows/E.

I gave the /windows/E directory permissions 775.

I found an ntfs-3g rpm for SuSE-10.0 and 10.1 by Guru:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/rpm-...ystem/ntfs-3g/

One also has to install fuse.

The driver looks very promising, and IMHO it is only beta because the setup is a bit tricky, as the quality and speed of the data transfer is impecable. While I have read of people compiling it for 64-bit (and getting it to work) and have no reports on the data integrety of 64-bit versions, which leaves me a bit suspicous re: 64-bit SuSE compatibility.

After some time, I learned how to get it to auto-install. For automatic mount/install on boot, on the suseforums site, the following was recommended to me, which works quite well for loading the ntfs-3g driver upon boot. First in a konsole (with root permissions) type:
modprobe fuse

Then edit the file /etc/sysconfig/kernel and modify the line that says:
MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT=""
to
MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT="fuse"

[I did this using YaST, as opposed to editting the file directly]

And finally I editted /etc/fstab to mount my ntfs partitions.
/dev/hda1 /windows/E ntfs-3g silent,umask=0,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0

I had previously created the directory /windows/E with 775 permissions.

=========================
Edit - I just read on forums.suselinuxsupport a recommendation by a user to use a symbolic link, instead of modifying the /etc/sysconfig/kernel file. I haven't tried this myself. I quote the post:

There is an easy way to replace the standard ntfs driver with ntfs-3g:

After installing ntfs-3g just execute the following command:

ln -s /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /sbin/mount.ntfs

After that every ntfs mount will be done with ntfs-3g.

How does it work?
This will add a link mount.ntfs to /sbin (where all the system executables are). When mount is executed to open ntfs, it first looks, if there is a file mount.ntfs in this directory. If it is, the one is used, otherwise the standard built-in ntfs mount is used.
If you want to use the old ntfs-mount, just remove the file /sbin/mount.ntfs