Paragon Sends Out Latest NTFS Read-Write Linux Driver Patches

Back in August was the big surprise of file-system driver vendor Paragon Software wanting to mainline their NTFS driver into the Linux kernel that is much more advanced than the existing NTFS Linux driver. While not merged yet, on Friday the latest version was sent out for review.

The current NTFS Linux kernel driver is not actively maintained and lacks proper write support for this very common Microsoft file-system. Paragon meanwhile has long been offering this commercial NTFS driver to the likes of macOS and Linux while seemingly at the end of its useful commercial life, Paragon is now working to get the driver in the mainline kernel.

While the initial Paragon patches received some criticism, new patches quickly materialized and addressed various gaps in the code.

More than a month later, the eighth spin of the "NTFS3" driver patches were sent out. This latest version fixes compressed file operations. Some recent revisions to this driver since our last coverage also includes handling remount support, security descriptors validity checks, logging improvements, better operation handling on very fragmented files, and an assortment of fixes.

These latest NTFS3 Linux driver patches can be found on the kernel mailing list. Additional feature work is still planned by Paragon on this driver. The code hasn't been queued up yet for introduction in the next cycle, Linux 5.10, but we'll see if by chance it's deemed ready yet at least for staging.