Linux NTFS Driver Preparing "nocase" Case-Insensitive Mount Option

[brucethemoose]

ext4 and f2fs already support this feature.

[stormcrow]

when they sit there wondering why they have two folders called foo and fOo when all they want is "FOO" it does force them when they go to "fix it." they realize, foo and fOo are treated differently and start paying attention to their formatting because they don't want "duplicates." they start formatting things one way for they don't have to run into this "issues."

i understand your "average user" argument but from an overall formatting etiquette, forcing case sensitivity does help overtime keep files named sanely or at least follow a common formatting pattern overtime. allowing insensitivity allows people to do a lot of bizarre formatting. go back to my modding example, you can have ten variations of "NVDLC04" while with linux users you can easily bet most will probably just have it written as "nvdlc04" simply because its easier and don't want to worry about variations.

No, it doesn't force them to fix it. What it does is piss them off and they call their nearest IT person to "fix it". Being the IT person that "fixes it", I can tell you being insistent on naming conventions programmers are supposed to understand but the average person doesn't is an exercize in utter futility. They don't get it, don't want to get it, and just want to get on with their work -and I don't blame them for it. Unix and the Unix world and community was designed for engineers which usually understand pedantatry. But the vast majority of people that use computers are not engineers, will never understand any of that, and don't have the patience to even care to learn. Again, they just want to get on with their job. Computers are meant to ease people's work loads, and making computers efficient and secure are core tennants of UX. Your point is exactly why open source is generally never going to appeal to anyone but other engineers and people with such literal mindsets. Mindsets the vast majority of people don't have and will never have and will be why there will never be a "year of the Linux desktop" with any of the current UXes available. All of them (including Gnome and KDE) are designed for computer enthusiasts and engineers, not the kind of person who Android and iOS are designed to reach (and why those two platforms are now the biggest userbase of all).

[marlock]

stormcrow
We are having the year of the Linux Handheld Gaming Console, and the Linux Kernel devs did embrace case insensitiveness unlike the user you're arguing against. You're living up to your nickname with the doom and gloom

middy
Nobody will be forced to fix anything. Windows apps are not developed on a Linux development environment so the bug will ship to users undetected...

...and then it will manifest because linux took a more strict approach towards case sensitivity.

The devs might refuse to fix it because they only care about windows, and linux users will need to hunt and rename files manually (risking new issues during game updates)... or they might not even exist to take action, or the source code and tooling might be lost to time and even the devs can't fix and update it.

Games are mostly closed source, so only the original devs can fix them, but they don't work like other apps because many are released and never see an update again afterwards yet each game is unique and irreplaceable despite that. GoG ("Good Old Games") was born from a pile of abandonware games because there isa special interest in keeping that kind of app alive and functional after they are orphaned.


Now here is my humble perspective on the issue:

How many linux apps and users actually make use of "foo.txt" and "Foo.txt" in the same folder on purpose and need them to be separate different files, not copies or symlinks for compatibility purposes?

I suspect the answer is close to zero...

So I'm willing to bet we could get away with enabling the case insensitiveness filesystem compatibility feature on the root partition and things would still "just work", or very minimal work would be necessary to achieve that.

If the feature helps remove a potential compatibility issue, while helping the computer behave closer to our natural thought processes and languages, without tangible loss of functionality... then why not work on it?
(which incidentally the best minds in linux development already decided to do after probably much deeper consideration then ours...)

edit: just to clarify, I'm not saying the feature is going to be used on the main linux partition, at least not now and not in the near future. I'm just arguing that the one thing case sensitiveness can provide (foo.txt and Foo.txt coexistance) is not useful in practice and the drawbacks (calling foo.txt failing to reach Foo.txt) is quite tangible.

[Nille]

This is only possible in *case INSENSIITIVY* file systems.

NTFS is case insensitive but the Windows Shell does not allow it. And to be honest, a case sensitive file system is stupid if your users work directly on the Filesystem because the User is not case sensitive.

We are having the year of the Linux Handheld Gaming Console

But the stuff that makes a GNU/Linux is the traditional way are more or less hidden.

[marlock]

But the stuff that makes a GNU/Linux is the traditional way are more or less hidden.

Yes, it's hidden and noobs will be oblivious to the issue.

I agree it's a usability issue if Foo.txt is not the same as foo.txt, but it's one that is also pretty minor for an end user and more relevant for software development and platform compatibility.

And guess what... The fact that the occasional obnoxiousness of the CLI and root OS conventions can be abstracted away from the end user is the whole point of the GUI and of making an OS user-friendly. Computers are inherently pedantic and we program layer upon layer to make them more smooth and natural to use for our practical purposes... and this works, so Linux pedantry is there in the Deck yet people "just play games" on it... and this also proves that the starting point is obnoxious but the big kahunas in linux development are aiming in the right direction and working on those issues so no, it's not impossible to have the year of linux on the desktop too.

IMHO if Linux Mint was a bigger distro we would have already done had ourses, but getting something good AND big out there for A LOT people is part of the challenge (and something Valve just did wonders to advance our chances of achieving, regardless of the distro)

I'd also argue that the years of windows on the desktop are past it... it's a horrible experience for far too many of its users, more so than linux, and its been so for a while regardless of case sensitiveness

[Nille]

so Linux pedantry is there in the Deck yet people "just play games" on it...

Well, the Deck use ext4 Casefolding for its home partition and SD cards.

I'd also argue that the years of windows on the desktop are past it... it's a horrible experience for far too many of its users, more so than linux, and its been so for a while regardless of case sensitiveness

I agree that windows gives a horrible experience but its still better at one fundamental point compared to GNU/Linux that its still more viable for most users. You can still go to the website of program X or Y and get the installer from them. And that installer works on multiple version and in some cases even back to Win2k/XP. of course that brings its own issues but the user get what it wants. on the other hand i see on GNU/Linux more and more the horrible trend to pipe a shell script from a website to a root shell to install something.
Or lets look at Mobile. There is a major Store on both major platforms. And you can easy upload your application to them that just works on all targeted devices. you don't have to build it specially for the android version from google, samsung, motorola, sony, LG, etc. If you try to bring your application or a upgrade to one of the major Linux Distributions you get probably rejected if you are not Firefox or Chrome.

[marlock]

. You can still go to the website of program X or Y and get the installer from them

that's not a better UX than using an app store and an app store is not a better UX than a linux repo gui "store" with 1-click install of 100% free stuff

that being said I know what you mean... if an app is not on the tepo it can be a nuissance to install it manually on linux compared to the ubiquity of setup.exes from the app devs themselves... but setup.exe is also one of the reasons I was glad to see windows dead and buried at my home, with the growth of pesky bundled browser searchbars (adware and spyware) and such horrible nonsense... and with them I also finally stopped having to deal with security suites, which were horrible UX & resource hogs of the worst kind

I could also bring up the issue of hardware drivers windows still requires a user to browse manufacturer websites for (all horrible websites), and that end up installing end-user apps instead of just the driver... each with their crazy UI design that only works for some models of their own brand (not even the same UI for all models of the same brand!!!) while for an astonishing amount of hardware we have instantaneous detection out-of-the-box... it's really rewarding to see windows users use a printer on linux for the first time now... it wasn't pretty until recently if you got an incompatible one, but now there are proper generic protocols for wired and wireless printing that linux handles like a champ and windows is just shameful at this! the surprise in their face when the printer (and scanner) are automatically detected without user intervention, in mere seconds, and can simply be used... is priceless!

All this to say that the Linux Desktop experience is far from unnacceptable for common non techie users. It can be far superior to windows in many aspects already. It's already more a matter of inertia than real lack of quality and it keeps getting better because linux devs do care about it in one way or another (while windows seems to be getting worse and worse...)

[Nille]

that's not a better UX than using an app store and an app store is not a better UX than a linux repo gui "store" with 1-click install of 100% free stuff

but its not better if the required application is not there or only a old version is there that has not the function that someone want.

that being said I know what you mean... if an app is not on the repo it can be a nuissance to install it manually on linux compared to the ubiquity of setup.exes from the app devs themselves... but setup.exe is also one of the reasons I was glad to see windows dead and buried at my home, with the growth of pesky bundled browser searchbars (adware and spyware) and such horrible nonsense... and with them I also finally stopped having to deal with security suites, which were horrible UX & resource hogs of the worst kind

I don't say that's good but its practical. But its still better than block it for most users. Then that happens that a user see a script online that he has just to pipe in a root shell.

I could also bring up the issue of hardware drivers windows still requires a user to browse manufacturer websites for (all horrible websites), and that end up installing end-user apps instead of just the driver... each with their crazy UI design that only works for some models of their own brand (not even the same UI for all models of the same brand!!!) while for an astonishing amount of hardware we have instantaneous detection out-of-the-box... it's really rewarding to see windows users use a printer on linux for the first time now... it wasn't pretty until recently if you got an incompatible one, but now there are proper generic protocols for wired and wireless printing that linux handles like a champ and windows is just shameful at this! the surprise in their face when the printer (and scanner) are automatically detected without user intervention, in mere seconds, and can simply be used... is priceless!

Drivers are not a big issue for users. they brought a prebuild computer where drivers are already installed. Windows Update can also "update" the drivers. And about printing, thats a horrible thing on windows since decades.

All this to say that the Linux Desktop experience is far from unnacceptable for common non techie users. It can be far superior to windows in many aspects already. It's already more a matter of inertia than real lack of quality and it keeps getting better because linux devs do care about it in one way or another (while windows seems to be getting worse and worse...)

We talked about the Deck previously. I wanted to delete a big file in Dolphin. It tells me that the file it to big for the Trash Bin and it does nothing else, just that message. After a short search i have to hold shift or ctrl + del to bypass the trash. now, do that on a device like the deck. To make it more accessible i had to edit the menu to add the direct delete function.
Of course that is only one example but that small things that are stick. And its feels like Gnome is remove everything from there applications and KDE dont know what checkboxes and sliders add to the options.

[marlock]

Linux Mint Cinnamon does not have that problem... there is a "direct delete" option (can be shown or hidden in Nemo settings) and IIRC the message "too big for moving to the trash" offers the option of a direct delete, as anyone with a half-brain would expect, LOL

Those tiny details make me love Mint, but also they don't despair me about Linux usability because it can improve over time from user feedback to the devs (wereas Microsoft is as boneheaded as they come and windows is closed source so it's their way or the highway)... you could make a feature request or even file a bug report for a usability issue

[dragon321]

Well, that was exactly what I had in mind. No idea why it would break, but if one thing computers told me is that many things aren't as straightforward as they seem.

For example, a tool that expects to be able to write files whose names use different sets of characters that may coincidentally be the same but with a case changed will fail royally on a case-insensitive FS (or an FS that *can* be case-sensitive but is mounted as case-insensitive)

About failing it depends how such tool will react for that issue. For example if you run file manager and try to create another file with the same name as some exisiting file but with differ case then it will simply tell you that such file exist or will fail silently. For example Nautilus (GNOME FIles) can't really handle this, it doesn't recognize case insensitivity when you rename file and renaming simply fails if file already exists with same name but different case (it shouldn't let you rename file in that case). If I recall correctly KDE Dolphin take recognize this and simply won't let you rename file. I might be wrong about this, I haven't used KDE for some time.

Fun fact - Wine Staging can actually use ext4 case insensitive feature. Because of Windows case insensitive nature, Wine had to take care of that internally. If you have ext4 partition with enabled case insensitive option then Wine will use that instead of internal method. That could bring better performance and compatibility but as far I know there are no benchmarks that would prove that so it's unknown how much it improved by that feature.