New NTFS File-System Driver Submitted For Linux 7.1

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abbidabbi@reddit

The old readonly one, ntfs, which has been removed/replaced
The FUSE-based one, ntfs-3g
The out-of-tree commercial Paragon Software one
The current upstreamed (but abandoned) Paragon Software one, ntfs3, which replaced the old one
NTFSPLUS, upstreamed as ntfs in 7.1

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aliendude5300@reddit

Too fucking many. Between all of them you'd think we would have a functional one.

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GolemancerVekk@reddit

I mean, they're all reverse engineered and Microsoft gets to change the spec whenever they want without telling anyone. We have a functional driver... insofar as it's realistically possible.

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ManIkWeet@reddit

Microsoft doesn't really get to change the spec at will. There are unimaginable amounts of old/legacy systems that would crash and burn if they did something that breaks backward compatibility.

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We're not talking about legacy systems. We're talking about trying to use the NTFS partition that's on your PC right now, managed by a recent Windows install. It can receive updates that convert filesystems to newer versions and put them out of reach of the Linux driver.

Secondly, they don't have to make things crash and burn, they can just mangle things a bit here and there. There's a lot of things you can do when you don't care about playing nicely with other OS. Things like leaving the partition in a dirty state at reboot and fixing it covertly at next Windows start; but meanwhile if Linux tries to use it it can run into errors it doesn't know how to handle, or it will mess it up if it tries to fix them.

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Top-Rub-4670@reddit

I have high hopes for this one.

The design and features it already has beat all the others, and the author has a proven track record when it comes to file system development.

Let's hope that he doesn't fall in love with his LLM helper and lose track with reality like that other guy.

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rmyworld@reddit

Kent Overstreet falling in love with his LLM is fucking wild.

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NOCwork@reddit

It seems to be a very particular type of person crazy and crazy smart enough to create a filesystem. See previous case Hans.

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fantomas_666@reddit

Yeah, we should make new one that makes the rest obsolete

/s

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spin81@reddit

Is there even an actual open spec for NTFS? If there isn't and it's all reverse engineering to avoid getting sued, I can see why they'd end up in this situation.

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crotch-mavens@reddit

Yes there is none, but entitled people just love to complain.

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jashAcharjee@reddit

Yes

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tajetaje@reddit

Same as the NTFS PLUS driver that was announced a while ago. Just is not being positioned as a replacement for the existing NTFS driver

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my-name-is-puddles@reddit

This is the NTFSPLUS driver, it's just that name was dropped.

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Megame50@reddit

Five? I think? Hopefully this one works.

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ModerateManStan@reddit

Until it’s done and stable? Not enough.

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phylter99@reddit

All that matters is that we get to use the one that works.

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SystemAxis@reddit

If this actually replaces NTFS3, that’s long overdue. NTFS support on Linux has needed a proper refresh

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jambutters@reddit

why does NTFS3 need replacing? I thought it just came in recently so people wouldn't need ntfs-3g

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Infinity-of-Thoughts@reddit

As far as I recall, the NTFS3 driver that was pulled into the kernel last time, was pretty much abandoned right away, and the cause of some corrupted NTFS drives as well.

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ManIkWeet@reddit

Funny, I had AI suggest me to use "ntfs3" in /etc/fstab but constantly ran into either corruption or the damn thing not mounting my drives. It was supposedly "better, faster, more stable" than the "ntfs" version... now I have a confirmation that it wasn't because I did something wrong, yay.

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Masuteri_@reddit

Certainly an AI moment

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Ok-Anywhere-9416@reddit

NTFS3 has received updates with Linux 7.0 I think. Should be quicker at writing by default in some conditions.

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LinAGKar@reddit

I myself have a partition where NTFS3 returns data that's corrupted (in in inconsistent ways), but NTFS-3G reads the data just fine.

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JockstrapCummies@reddit

NTFS3 has numerous bugs, some of them related to basic features of a filesystem. For the longest time it actually has no ability to create Windows-compatible symlinks.

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Dr_Hexagon@reddit

Why would you ever try and use a read write driver for NTFS on linux? Use a read only driver if you have to read NTFS drives. If you have to file share to Windows boxes use a different file system.

While NTFS remains a proprietary file system with no published standard the Linux drivers will always be suspect.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

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adamkex@reddit

> Why would you ever try and use a read write driver for NTFS on linux?

Not me but I can see someone doing that because there aren't any filesystems that have good compatibility on both operating systems that isn't a variant of FAT.

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Dr_Hexagon@reddit

use ExFat as a temporary transfer drive to move between native NTFS and native EXT4 / BTRFS. Mount the NTFS drive read only in Linux. Far safer and using some scripts you can make it so everything copied to the temp ExFAT drive is copied to a native drive then deleted after a week for example.

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Flimsy_Complaint490@reddit

if true, they should disable NTFS3 then or put out a big disclaimer about it.

I recently used it with an NTFS external SSD containing critical data and if it died to a random bug like that, I would be very sad and already be posting in the linuxsucks subreddit about it to calm my rage.

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

Good. The only thing better would be the complete abandoning of NTFS as a filesystem across all operating systems, but I don't see microslop stopping anytime soon, so this is the best option.

Also, if microslop wants to keep using their trash filesystem, they should start supporting a kernel driver for Linux...

But none of that is happening, I'm just ranting.

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Dr_Hexagon@reddit

You can file share to windows clients just fine using and Ext4 disk. There's no real reason to use NTFS read write on Linux.

If for some reason you absolutely must have a file sharing server thats NTFS then just use a windows server. Linux isn't always the solution.

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AcridWings_11465@reddit

There's no real reason to use NTFS read write on Linux

Of course there is. If you want a cross platform FS for your external drives with a semblance of data loss protection, NTFS is the ironically only option. Ext 4 doesn't run OOTB on Windows, exFAT is horrible for backups and important data. Plus, if you dual boot from different partitions on the same disk, NTFS is again the only option to send files to the windows partition. Of course, your Linux system doesn't have to be NTFS, but that is irrelevant to these use cases.

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Dr_Hexagon@reddit

These are bad use cases that risk data loss. Since MS can change NTFS at any time with no notice and no documentation you can never be sure a Linux driver will catch all data loss cases.

If you're happy to take that risk then fine. If I needed an transfer drive between windows and linux on the same system I'd use an ExFAT transfer drive just as an intermediate way to copy files between native NTFS and native Ext4 / BTRFS. Or I'd use a NAS to transfer.

Both are far safer.

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creeper1074@reddit

It's obviously not officially supported, but you can run Windows on Btrfs.

https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs

https://github.com/maharmstone/quibble

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