Sony Contributes ~73%+ Performance Improvement For exFAT Linux Driver

[rabcor]

Was a bit hyped but then i saw it was just exfat. Now some USBs might be faster when i remember to use exfat over ntfs on them

[erniv2]

Google/Android is starting an initiative for OEMs launching with Android 12(+), to use Generic Kernel Image (GKI). Getting that to all the phones out in the wild will be a multi-year process. But it will help a lot with fragmentation & easing the android update pain.

I read up about Android 12 when i was exited "yes does my xiaomi phone get the update" but it looks grim on the kernel front miui 12.5.5 uses linux 4.14 the beta used 4.19 but they roled back thats for Android 11.

Android 12 requires linux 5.4 kernel for oem and 5.10 for option roms, so it will take atleast 3-4 years until the goodies from 5.15 will hit the market leave alone 5.19 wich is still in linux next.

[geearf]

That percentage figure is strangely inverted and not intuitive at all. I'd be saying it's four times faster!

4 times as fast or 3 times faster.

[mdedetrich]

It is compatible with windows and that's about it. It may be the least bad option out of fat32 ntfs and exfat.

Thats downplaying it a bit, exFat is compatible for both reads and writes with all major OS's (i.e. Windows, MacOSX, Linux) without need to installing custom drivers for different filesystems. This made exFat the best FS for basic USB thumb/hard drive storage. The other "options" have the following issues

* ntfs: Only Windows has been able to write to NTFS by default. MacOS mounts it in read only mode and although there is an NTFS driver for fuse for Linux its not the same as having it already in the kernel (although this will change with the new in kernel NTFS driver)
* ext4: Forget about it for anything non Linux
* fat: Has limitations for file/partition size

so tl;dr is that if you have a thumdrive and you want it to be able to read/write on every common OS, exFat has been your choice.

[theriddick]

I'm surprised Sony hasn't yet released a Store app like MS Live Games Service whatever it is for Windows AND Linux. Keeping everything on their exclusive and hard to get PS(5) consoles is going to really hurt them in the long run.

[kylew77]

It is open source and has one HUGE advantage: like (V)FAT it offers perfect interoperability by being supported by everything and everyone. But unlike (V)FAT, it's 64 bit so it doesn't suffer from the same volume size limitations. I think (but don't take my word for it) that it also got rid of that horrible hack in VFAT that allowed long file names on top of the old 8+3 format. Instead it supports long file names natively.

None of the *BSDs as of yet support ExFat natively, FreeBSD is working on a port and since presumably ExFat works on the PS5 Sony could contribute back and submit a patch for FreeBSD 12.x and 13.x!

[skeevy420]

I'm surprised Sony hasn't yet released a Store app like MS Live Games Service whatever it is for Windows AND Linux. Keeping everything on their exclusive and hard to get PS(5) consoles is going to really hurt them in the long run.

It'd be bitchin if we got the PSN in addition to Steam, Epic, Origin, Uplay, Xbox Live, and whatnot. The goshdarn PS4 and PS5 might as well run the FreeBSD equivalent of SteamOS 3; both using the same consumer PC CPU and GPU manufacturer for their hardware. Due to the numerous executable VM methods and compatibility layers, there's no technical reason Sony couldn't figure out one of those for the executables, whip up PSVK to convert their graphics over to Vulkan, and then release a PC and Linux store with the Sony equivalent of Proton to power the games.

Microsoft was smart when making a Windows 10 version a requirement with Xbox Live...who also happens to use the same consumer PC CPU and GPU hardware as Valve and Sony.

[Palu Macil]

Very nice, but if its going to be used on 5.19 it will not affect a lot of mobiles. Most likely they have to backport it down to...3.x? or 4.19? dont know which one is currently used for Android phones. But usually its quite old old long long stable.

Not that old. A new device launching with Android 12 can use 4.19, 5.4 or 5.10 and Android 13 will be 5.4, 5.10, or 5.15, so that includes the most recent LTS kernel--the same one used in Ubuntu 22.04.

[sinepgib]

It'd be bitchin if we got the PSN in addition to Steam, Epic, Origin, Uplay, Xbox Live, and whatnot. The goshdarn PS4 and PS5 might as well run the FreeBSD equivalent of SteamOS 3; both using the same consumer PC CPU and GPU manufacturer for their hardware. Due to the numerous executable VM methods and compatibility layers, there's no technical reason Sony couldn't figure out one of those for the executables, whip up PSVK to convert their graphics over to Vulkan, and then release a PC and Linux store with the Sony equivalent of Proton to power the games.

Microsoft was smart when making a Windows 10 version a requirement with Xbox Live...who also happens to use the same consumer PC CPU and GPU hardware as Valve and Sony.

But what's in it for them? Microsoft wins from giving an extra incentive to use Windows (even if most people don't explicitly pay for the license, Steam may take gamers from their platform and they do get revenue from data collection), Stream never sold consoles so it doesn't lose a thing. Sony sells a complete platform that includes the console. I'm not sure it would be a good idea for them, commercially, to make their games playable in PC.
Besides, fixed hardware is useful for developers, which is an incentive to target the platform. Once you lose that, why would they prefer to make PS exclusive games when they could reach a wider audience with Steam?

[rickst29]

pretty sure only required on 64GB+ sd/microsd cards

Certainly REQUIRED there, but also extremely useful whenever a single file (such as a video) will exceed 4GB size on a smaller drive (USB or SD). I often hand out music videos on 32GB micro cards with SD adapters. I always format them as EXFAT and master the videos as "MP4", in order to provide a "lowest common denominator" format for distributing home movies to users with various kinds of computers (Apple, Windoze, Linux, and "other").

The same applies when I format USB 3.0 flash drives for the same purpose, allowing others to "play" a big video file on their computers. If only televisions directly supported mp4 and USB 3.0 on their USB inputs, people wouldn't even need a computer for those files. But TVs generally support only USB 2.0 (too slow), and a few types of photo-images, primarily JPG.