FAT File-System Driver For Linux Sees Patch To Run Multiple Times Faster

[polarathene]

AFAIk pretty much all distros are using hybrid ISO approach, so it's UFS, like a DVD. None uses Fat32 outside of the EFI partitions and a couple specialist distros.

Oh, I know they don't use FAT32, Something like ISO-9660 iirc. I don't know much about install media, but assume it's just used for historical media such as CD/DVDs where many are probably using USB now, so using an alternative filesystem might be possible? (although not likely to be seen mainstreamed any time soon as I guess the current standard is sufficient for most and optical discs might still be in use)

[starshipeleven]

using an alternative filesystem might be possible

Yeah it is. You can assemble the same packages and ship it as "disk image" to be flashed on a drive, and use that to install.

Or even prepare a generic disk image of a basic system, and you can use whatever filesystem you want.

This has been the choice of some well-known FreeBSD derivatives (pfSense, OPNsense, FreeNAS), and some Linux-based systems like OpenWrt that ships generic pre-assembled disk images.

[gregzeng]

Originally posted by birdie
I just want Microsoft to open source NTFS. ExFAT is OK, no doubt about it, but millions of devices out there (e.g. Smart TVs or TV boxes) support only FAT32 and NTFS.
They could make step ahead and opensource ReFS.

They could make step ahead and opensource ReFS.

MICROSOFT is now a member of OPEN INNOVATION NETWORK: "OIN enables freedom of action in open source and Linux, which have been great sources of innovation."
We are now waiting for any capable coder (do they exist?) to use these Microsoft patents (90,000 of them) to get rid of the NTFS-5G, FAT32, ReFS and other patent restrictions.
Question is: Are their any talented coders in the Linux communities?

One of the biggest advantages of so many people trying to re-invent the Debian & Ubuntu creations is the creation of expert coders. Generally these autistic coders are so lacking in team work skills that they cannot work with large cooperative teams. When myself and similar people are at our most original, creative selves, we become insufferable for others; at the extreme edge of ASD (autism spectrum disorders). So as usual, those closest to us (private & public lives) usually succeed when they try to get rid of us.

FAT32 used to be partition size limited. In Windows, there are several ways to remove this. Hopefully Linux does this also. Adding better caches and other features could make it better for all operating systems.

[jacob]

I just want Microsoft to open source NTFS. ExFAT is OK, no doubt about it, but millions of devices out there (e.g. Smart TVs or TV boxes) support only FAT32 and NTFS.

We already have an open source implementation of NTFS. But it's a shame that it's 2020 and there still isn't a modern, high performance filesystem that could be used as a first class citizen on both Windows and Linux to share partitions or storage devices between the two OSes. ExFAT is definitely not it.

[uxmkt]

Oh, I know they don't use FAT32, Something like ISO-9660 iirc.

ISO9660 can be considered "just" a form of extra metadata that is placed alongside existing data, anywhere, apart from perhaps some signature at a fixed location. The El Torito spec says it's at CD sector 8 (32KB from the start). Regular filesystems either have a defined unused space at that location by design, or you can perhaps nudge the fs to place a blank file there, which reserves that zone that way. ISO9660 does not care what the original data is; you could extend a tar archive with ISO9660 and have it boot (not that I have tried). Or you could slap on a partition table...

I don't know much about install media, but assume it's just used for historical media such as CD/DVDs where many are probably using USB now

But what do you put on USB? Right, the same data as before, because everyone already knows how to read that! Which is why the boot box (F12 key or whathaveyou) sometimes displays two entries for your media. One for El Torito, one for partition-based boot. And sometimes another for booting an EFI executable that happens to be on an EFI partition that happens to be in your partition table that happens to be in your ISO image..

[birdie]

We already have an open source implementation of NTFS. But it's a shame that it's 2020 and there still isn't a modern, high performance filesystem that could be used as a first class citizen on both Windows and Linux to share partitions or storage devices between the two OSes. ExFAT is definitely not it.

To be honest NTFS-3G is horrible. It's very slow and it's capable of destroying your data if you use it for certain workflows.

[starshipeleven]

MICROSOFT is now a member of OPEN INNOVATION NETWORK: "OIN enables freedom of action in open source and Linux, which have been great sources of innovation."
We are now waiting for any capable coder (do they exist?) to use these Microsoft patents (90,000 of them) to get rid of the NTFS-5G, FAT32, ReFS and other patent restrictions.
Question is: Are their any talented coders in the Linux communities?

Wrong question.

Right question is who needs a vastly inferior filesystem in Linux? So far there have been people trying to export good filesystems like btrfs to run on Windows, and even people making a new bootloader for windows so it can boot from good filesystems too and not just from NTFS.

FAT32 used to be partition size limited. In Windows, there are several ways to remove this. Hopefully Linux does this also.

Linux never had the "partition size limit" that Windows has (which limits it to 32 GB or something) and can make the biggest possible partition FAT32 can format, 2TB.
Going beyond that is impossible as you need to change the on-disk structure to allow that and this breaks compatibility with FAT32 filesystem drivers, which is why the "FAT32 without this limitation" is called "exFAT", that's literally all it is.

Adding better caches and other features could make it better for all operating systems.

No it cannot, as these are driver features, so valid only if you are using the same driver as Linux.

[starshipeleven]

To be honest NTFS-3G is horrible. It's very slow and it's capable of destroying your data if you use it for certain workflows.

transferring data to external drives for sharing with other devices isn't one of those "certain workflows", and isn't that slow either in recent kernels, I'm saturating the external drive write speed at 40-50 MB/s and getting 70-80 MB/s reads on a USB 3.0 external drive.

Source: I have external drives formatted NTFS I uses for work and other reasons for ages.

[Weasel]

Just a note on exFAT: I don't understand why they had to repeat the common mistake of having just 32 bits for representing seconds in a file's date which confines the range of representable dates in exFAT from 1980-01-01 to 2107-12-31. 40-bit dates with 1 second granularity have a range of 34000 years, with the remaining 24 bits offering sub-microsecond precision if the whole data-structure is 64-bits wide. While it is harder to manipulate 40-bit values in plain C and some other programming languages, this isn't in the long term a sufficient reason to have just 32-bit seconds-based dates in modern filesystems.

The thing is who gives a fuck of sub-second precision in the first place on a file? What a fucking waste. If you need that use an actual database optimized for this.

[kbios]

Just make a mdadm RAID1 of EFI partition with metadata 1.0 or 0.9, since the raid metadata is at the end of the partition, all the drives will have a valid EFI partition for the UEFI firmware.
This method worked perfectly fine for ages with any other non-RAID-aware bootloaders like for example u-boot.

And yes I'm doing this and it works fine.

Yes, that's a possibility. However, if anything writes to the system partition from efi (like grub env, or some efis have the ability to write configuration profiles to a file) the raid gets destroyed