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Native Linux Kernel Module Is Out For Microsoft exFAT

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  • #11
    Originally posted by strcat View Post
    We already have Universal Disk Format for sharing read/write data between OS X, Windows and Linux. It's even kind enough to enforce that all file names are valid Unicode, unlike most Linux file systems where they're just a byte string without NUL or slashes.

    I don't think having fast exFAT support is really going to matter.
    It is the standard partition format for large SD cards (more than 32 GB). Devices are not required to, and often don't, support any other format. So if you want to use ordinary, off-the-shelf, large SD cards, this is your only option.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by TheBlackCat View Post
      It is the standard partition format for large SD cards (more than 32 GB). Devices are not required to, and often don't, support any other format. So if you want to use ordinary, off-the-shelf, large SD cards, this is your only option.
      There are really common SD cards that can't be reformatted?

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      • #13
        Originally posted by birdie View Post
        That's funny - people want to destroy me because I see real Linux problems.

        Instead of trying to collaborate, trying to work as a whole, trying to change the way Linux is (mis)developed, trying to make Linux stable and usable for a long periods of time (you can work with the same Windows version for great many years before upgrading to a next version) - they blame me.

        Whoa!
        You don't see real problems - your list is crap threefold:
        1) The attitude of the list itself is to COMPLAIN "why linux is not ready for the desktop", instead of BUGFIX "what prevents linux to shine on desktop"
        2) The composition of problems is wrong - many problems references as unresolvable, where they have been resolved, like S3TC, omitting S2TC and omitting the fact anyone can use S3TC and intel even turned it on by default; many assumptions are short sighted on purpose, like comparison of closed source from illegal monopoly platform with opensource from 10% platform - its like crying about bad state of tizen vs good state of android, for the sake of crying; many claims are exaggerations, like "X on Linux is slower than X on windows", where its 5-10% slower; trying to show justified and irrelevant complexity like with Kernel+ALSA+PulseAudio+PA_Sink+App vs Windows (why not show how crappy its on Windows with a lot of legacy stuff like this); yelling "ALSA ftw", where ALSA happened due to OSS going crap, and still OSSv4 *is* available.
        3) The list itself is built in inductive form, multiplied by errors of 1 & especially 2, where it should be built in deductive form.

        TL; DR Take the list down and rework it from girl's crylist into men's todo list and maybe the devs will even start reading it. But that involves you to change your own mind attitude, which will hardly happen - because you apparently enjoy this state yourself reposting it like a spambot. Which is masochistic IF you are linux user, or saddistic IF you are windows user; but still all-way girlish.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by birdie View Post
          That's funny - people want to destroy me because I see real Linux problems.
          No, because that list is mostly rubbish.

          Take for example this:

          strangely some Linux developers oppose to the whole idea of games on Linux
          With a link to https://mail.gnome.org/archives/wm-s.../msg00003.html

          Well, he doesn't. You completely made that up as far as I am concerned.

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          • #15
            Hello.
            I'm the owner of the github page and of the native exFat linux read-write driver.
            I'm impressed that the Phoronix community has created a two-page discussion the same day the drivers got released.

            I would like to reveal a few things about the driver.

            It's an android exFat driver which I found on github about a month ago.
            I dislike Microsoft's attempts to bring the reputation of linux and similar open-source projects down, so it was my revenge.

            I've needed a way to interact with my external 1TB HDD via linux and store large files on it, and there was no non-fuse ntfs driver available for linux either, so I decided to do a good thing and write a native kernel rw exFat driver for linux.
            There was a ro driver and a fuse implementation before.
            The first that came up in my mind is to find if it was available on the net already: I've checked android source codes from Samsung's website, but they did not release any parts of the exfat modules there.
            Then I made a simple search on github and there was a couple of repos of samsung tablet's kernel. There was it.
            The version of that kernel was 3.0 so I had to put some effort (literally, 4 hours) to make it work on the version 3.8.

            This driver has not been written by me, I just ported it to the newer kernel version, with minimal adjustments.
            That is a good thing, because I can state that the driver will work with all 3.x versions of kernel, if only you could spend an hour fixing a couple of lines of code for that version.

            The reason I did not port it to 3.9 is because I wanted to make a release ASAP and the community to pick this code to do whatever you like: patches/ports/improvements; and release that as branches on github or somewhere else. It is a work of an hour or less for any programmer to make it work with the latest kernel.
            And it's even a good source to create a driver for other platforms.

            I used tor all the time and using it right now because I don't want to waste any more time on dealing with microsoft's idiotic policies, that's why I've uploaded the code in 1 hr on github, via the on-site editor.

            This driver is guaranteed to provide full exFat support on linux, on the same level as it's available on all Samsung tablets with kernel version 3.0.

            I am not planning on supporting this driver because I believe I've done enough for the community to have the full linux exFat support.
            Feel free to fork and port as you like.
            It's not a patch, and can be installed as a separate module by running just one command: `make install`. It's like the vboxdrv, same principle.

            P.S.
            I may find more native drivers (ntfs?) from that tablet's source code and release them later.

            Free software for the free Minds!

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            • #16
              Originally posted by gigaplex View Post
              I'm not convinced the exFAT patents are much of a blocker to mainline inclusion.
              I'm certain that is pretty much THE blocker.

              Originally posted by gigaplex View Post
              EDIT: Apparently they don't have patents on NTFS, but FAT32 still stands.
              They don't have patents on NTFS? As for Linux NTFS kernel support, AFAIK you can read from NTFS partitions but not write (which I assumed was due to patents), but there is of course the userspace ntfs FUSE driver which can both read and write.

              Likewise there's a userspace FUSE driver for exfat.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by birdie View Post
                If you'd thought for a second you could have realized that the author could create the code on his own PC and then he simply uploaded the final version to GitHub. ;-)
                And if he had done that, they'd all be dumped in at the same time in ONE COMMIT, not over several hours in SEVERAL commits.

                Also FYI: If you look at that driver, it is basically the same old vfat driver. It most likely doesn't actually work.
                Last edited by droidhacker; 26 June 2013, 08:19 AM.

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by gigaplex View Post
                  I'm not convinced the exFAT patents are much of a blocker to mainline inclusion. Last I checked, the mainline kernel includes NTFS and FAT32 drivers and Microsoft has patents on both (and have successfully sued or extracted licenses from Android manufacturers over FAT32).

                  EDIT: Apparently they don't have patents on NTFS, but FAT32 still stands.
                  The mainline ntfs driver is read-only.

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by strcat View Post
                    There are really common SD cards that can't be reformatted?
                    Its not so much a question of whether it can or cannot be reformatted, its a question of some dipshit using it as-is and then handing you the chip with whatever corrupt data they've stored on it in order to send it to you. Also things like CAMERAS where the manufacturer is paid off by MS to only support their crap filesystem. This is the typical kind of nonsense that MS pulls in order to force everybody into a subservient status. There's no good reason to do it, but somewhere, somebody got paid off to do it.

                    In fact, I bet you that the group behind the sdcard standards probably wanted to use something free, but MS said "there's no way we're willing to support that, fuck off, use this OR ELSE", and so it was done. Now fortunately, from a legal standpoint, this actually weakens their (MS) position. It has to do with complete and utter dependence on that IP.

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by droidhacker View Post
                      Its not so much a question of whether it can or cannot be reformatted, its a question of some dipshit using it as-is and then handing you the chip with whatever corrupt data they've stored on it in order to send it to you. Also things like CAMERAS where the manufacturer is paid off by MS to only support their crap filesystem. This is the typical kind of nonsense that MS pulls in order to force everybody into a subservient status. There's no good reason to do it, but somewhere, somebody got paid off to do it.

                      In fact, I bet you that the group behind the sdcard standards probably wanted to use something free, but MS said "there's no way we're willing to support that, fuck off, use this OR ELSE", and so it was done. Now fortunately, from a legal standpoint, this actually weakens their (MS) position. It has to do with complete and utter dependence on that IP.
                      That's actually backwards, the device manufacturer's pay MS to license exFAT support.

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