"NTFS3" Linux Driver Spun Up An 11th Time With More Optimizations

[phoronix]

Phoronix: "NTFS3" Linux Driver Spun Up An 11th Time With More Optimizations

It's looking like Paragon Software's "NTFS3" read-write Linux driver for Microsoft's NTFS file-system is on a trajectory where we could see it land possibly with the Linux 5.11 kernel kicking off at year's end. Friday marked the eleventh iteration of these patches that Paragon previously offered to commercial customers but is now in the process of being upstreamed...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NTFS3-v11-Linux-Driver

[kylew77]

Please license this under a free non GPL license so the *BSDs will pick it up too hopefully. Right now there is no good file system to ferry files between OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and Windows. Fat32 is the only one that works and it has limitations. Can't use Ext4 on some of those platforms. Ext2 works but it is not read write on all platforms. Tired of advice on forms saying just use a thumb drive as a tape device with tar because to me that is unacceptable in 2020.

[HadrienG]

Please license this under a free non GPL license so the *BSDs will pick it up too hopefully. Right now there is no good file system to ferry files between OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and Windows. Fat32 is the only one that works and it has limitations. Can't use Ext4 on some of those platforms. Ext2 works but it is not read write on all platforms. Tired of advice on forms saying just use a thumb drive as a tape device with tar because to me that is unacceptable in 2020.

Can you expand a bit on your use cases ? I am asking because I used to have a somewhat similar problem (Windows/Linux/macOS file sync), but over recent years, as the data volume that I needed to synchronize between OSes shrunk and network connections sped up, I ended up in a situation where just syncing the files with something like Nextcloud ended up good enough 99% of the time with the benefit of having another backup of the data "for free". For the occasional remaining large sync job, I do use NTFS drives since that's supported well enough on all the OSes mentioned above, but if needed I could probably live with the occasional tar/split/cat/untar inconvenience of FAT32 given how rarely the need arises.

[walterav]

Please license this under a free non GPL license so the *BSDs will pick it up too hopefully. Right now there is no good file system to ferry files between OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and Windows. Fat32 is the only one that works and it has limitations. Can't use Ext4 on some of those platforms. Ext2 works but it is not read write on all platforms. Tired of advice on forms saying just use a thumb drive as a tape device with tar because to me that is unacceptable in 2020.

Have you looked at format-udf?

https://github.com/JElchison/format-udf

It does mention NetBSD but I have only tested Windows, MacOS and Linux using UDF filesystem for read/write data exchange between these operating systems.

[Nille]

Fat32 is the only one that works and it has limitations.

UDF was already mentioned and exFat is for this purpose. But i don't know how is the state of exFat in BSD but on all other Plattforms you are fine.

[CochainComplex]

...how about "Microsoft loves Linux" ? - I thought they are now on the OpenSource train. They gave in gracefully planty of not really necessary stuff (dispite of exfat) But the really needed stuff NTFS, DX, Office for Linux is not there yet....After all they are not really into OpenSource? [Cynism off]

[bemerk]

DirectX in Mesa, without any sparetime and paid work of small groups to translate it to opengl and vulkan, would be a dream come true.
But so far their work on it has been restricted to computing and the windows subsystem for linux.

[ypnos]

...how about "Microsoft loves Linux" ? - I thought they are now on the OpenSource train. They gave in gracefully planty of not really necessary stuff (dispite of exfat) But the really needed stuff NTFS, DX, Office for Linux is not there yet....After all they are not really into OpenSource? [Cynism off]

They love Linux where they have a business plan with it.
This includes running Linux in the cloud, due to customer demand. Customers would move to other cloud providers instead.
It includes running Linux within Windows, due to customer demand. Web developers would move to other platforms instead.

It does not include Linux cannibalizing Windows market share where it is not threatened already. On a positive note, Matthew Wilcox who works for Microsoft, is helping with the Paragon NTFS driver patches review.

[pal666]

Please license this under a free non GPL license so

you could steal it?

Can't use Ext4 on some of those platforms. Ext2 works but it is not read write on all platforms.

ext2 is fully documented, those lazy platforms just have to stop whining and start writing code

Tired of advice on forms saying just use a thumb drive as a tape device with tar because to me that is unacceptable in 2020.

in 2020 you could run anything in vm and export its filesystem via nfs or samba

[BwackNinja]

you could steal it?
ext2 is fully documented, those lazy platforms just have to stop whining and start writing code
in 2020 you could run anything in vm and export its filesystem via nfs or samba

You've got a lot higher chance of running into someone else's machine running Windows or MacOS where you can't expect to install a 3rd-party filesystem driver to use you're friend's printer to print that report you wrote. NFS and Samba have the same issues for that case -- you're not there modifying your friend's computer to accommodate your needs. Can you email it to yourself or them? Sure, but it's obvious that you're working around a bigger issue if that's the easiest way you've got to move a file somewhere you're walking anyway.