* Finding a suitable filesystem @ Michael Whapples ` Gregory Nowak ` Alex Snow 0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Michael Whapples @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup Hello, I am wondering what filesystem is best for a USB memory stick. The problem is that fat/fat32 is very poor on the permissions, but most systems can read/write it, whereas ntfs is poorly supported under Linux (and I am not certain about how good the permission support is) and things like ext3, reiserfs and other unix FSs aren't supported on windows. So is there mount options for fat/fat32 which improves the case somewhat under Linux, or might ntfs be a good compromise as most of the Linux systems I will be using it on will be mine so I can install ntfs-3g or other drivers (and windows 9x seems to have disappeared sufficiently that I won't have too many of those), or is there a windows driver for one of the unix filesystems (and if I want to be able to use it on more than just my machine I suppose I could make a small fat32 partition where I could have the driver available should a windows machine not have it). Thanks for any pointers to information or advice people can give. From Michael Whapples ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Finding a suitable filesystem Finding a suitable filesystem Michael Whapples @ ` Gregory Nowak ` Michael Whapples ` Alex Snow 1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Gregory Nowak @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I think that ext2 would be your best bet. The projects I'm about to mention, can work with ext2, but aren't able to work with the journal part of ext3. Also, you don't want a journaling file system on a flash drive, since that would make the drive wear out faster. http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ This is free, as in free source, but I haven't used it, due to the fact that it was still unstable beta software back when I was needing to access ext2 partitions under the other popular os. Things may have changed there since. http://www.fs-driver.org/ This is what I personally use, and I've found it to be very stable and reliable. It's freeware, but isn't free source, which doesn't bother me, though I realize it might bother some. It runs under nt4, 2000, as well as x86 versions of xp, and 2003. I don't know about vista. I also remember there was a set of tools which could read ext2 partitions, and do very limited write operations. These ran under dos, win95, 98, and me. I however don't have the url for that bookmarked, and am unable to find it. If it's something you're interested in, then maybe someone else will post the url for that. Hth. Greg On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 05:46:15PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote: > Hello, > I am wondering what filesystem is best for a USB memory stick. The > problem is that fat/fat32 is very poor on the permissions, but most > systems can read/write it, whereas ntfs is poorly supported under Linux > (and I am not certain about how good the permission support is) and > things like ext3, reiserfs and other unix FSs aren't supported on > windows. So is there mount options for fat/fat32 which improves the case > somewhat under Linux, or might ntfs be a good compromise as most of the > Linux systems I will be using it on will be mine so I can install > ntfs-3g or other drivers (and windows 9x seems to have disappeared > sufficiently that I won't have too many of those), or is there a windows > driver for one of the unix filesystems (and if I want to be able to use > it on more than just my machine I suppose I could make a small fat32 > partition where I could have the driver available should a windows > machine not have it). > > Thanks for any pointers to information or advice people can give. > > From > Michael Whapples > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > - -- web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) - -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHgWyJ7s9z/XlyUyARAvHsAKClF1IQERzdKPyAJnXcUOiO4yU6RQCgiWkv VHPWSxkua7KSwkA55i/C5pI= =dZI1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Finding a suitable filesystem ` Gregory Nowak @ ` Michael Whapples ` Joseph C. Lininger ` Joseph C. Lininger 0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Michael Whapples @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. >From a lot of googling about I was coming to the ext2 conclusion. Out of interest why would a journaling FS wear out the drive quicker? I haven't seen comment of this in my searches. Thanks Michael Whapples On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 17:04 -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > I think that ext2 would be your best bet. The projects I'm about to > mention, can work with ext2, but aren't able to work with the journal > part of ext3. Also, you don't want a journaling file system on a flash > drive, since that would make the drive wear out faster. > > http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ > This is free, as in free source, but I haven't used it, due to the > fact that it was still unstable beta software back when I was needing > to access ext2 partitions under the other popular os. Things may have > changed there since. > > http://www.fs-driver.org/ > This is what I personally use, and I've found it to be very stable and > reliable. It's freeware, but isn't free source, which doesn't bother > me, though I realize it might bother some. It runs under nt4, 2000, as > well as x86 versions of xp, and 2003. I don't know about vista. > > I also remember there was a set of tools which could read ext2 > partitions, and do very limited write operations. These ran under dos, > win95, 98, and me. I however don't have the url for that bookmarked, > and am unable to find it. If it's something you're interested in, then > maybe someone else will post the url for that. Hth. > > Greg > > > > On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 05:46:15PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote: > > Hello, > > I am wondering what filesystem is best for a USB memory stick. The > > problem is that fat/fat32 is very poor on the permissions, but most > > systems can read/write it, whereas ntfs is poorly supported under Linux > > (and I am not certain about how good the permission support is) and > > things like ext3, reiserfs and other unix FSs aren't supported on > > windows. So is there mount options for fat/fat32 which improves the case > > somewhat under Linux, or might ntfs be a good compromise as most of the > > Linux systems I will be using it on will be mine so I can install > > ntfs-3g or other drivers (and windows 9x seems to have disappeared > > sufficiently that I won't have too many of those), or is there a windows > > driver for one of the unix filesystems (and if I want to be able to use > > it on more than just my machine I suppose I could make a small fat32 > > partition where I could have the driver available should a windows > > machine not have it). > > > > Thanks for any pointers to information or advice people can give. > > > > From > > Michael Whapples > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Speakup mailing list > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > > > - -- > web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org > gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc > skype: gregn1 > (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) > > - -- > Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFHgWyJ7s9z/XlyUyARAvHsAKClF1IQERzdKPyAJnXcUOiO4yU6RQCgiWkv > VHPWSxkua7KSwkA55i/C5pI= > =dZI1 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Finding a suitable filesystem ` Michael Whapples @ ` Joseph C. Lininger ` Joseph C. Lininger 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Joseph C. Lininger @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 > Out of interest why would a journaling FS wear out the drive quicker? > I haven't seen comment of this in my searches. The reason has to do with the way journaling filesystems work. The summary is this. Journaling filesystems contain a log or journal of changes they are going to make to the filesystem. If you create a new file, for example, the changes to the filesystem necessary to create the file are recorded in the journal. Then the changes are made to the actual filesystem. What this does is to provide filesystem consistancy in the event your system crashes in the middle of a change to the filesystem. That way you don't have to do an extensive check of the filesystem to bring it to a consistant state. Replaying the journal takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, instead of the filesystem check taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I should point out that most journaling filesystems don't journal all data you write. They only journal changes to the metadata (structures used to keep track of files in the filesystem). This is done for performance reasons. Now the reason why journaling filesystems ware out your drive faster is that the filesystem typically allocates a specific portion for the journal, then continuously writes to it every time a change is made to the filesystem. Most flash drives have a chip which is rated for a maximum of about 100000 writes. The constant writing and rewriting of the portion allocated for the journal causes the chip to ware out rather quickly. A write to the journal is generated for, well, just about everything on a journaling filesystem mounted read-write. The following are examples: * File creation and removal * Editing a file * Any access of a file (if noatime option is not in use) * Creation and removal of directories Hope this helps. Joe -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQEVAwUBR4JcLch8jNraUiwqAQqHEgf/c14yOScbLCUgFg5BNLxKzYfN+LMQEYEj 2ta6f85CnzTPmwLZtUjrecXfxTwQ1OKiPTuZMsJQLe7TOzgXNM1kIwc2L9lBbwv/ mpq7um8Q419Q0CS6fmLjpvbeFpwWilJO+jWPBPUU++9ZwL8Hh8/kUTAhLTsBR97C U+CxEBKGsOZkwlL/R0wQJtP5r5Nuu42lcchQRSnwQKZp9oiBRaKc/QFqy0PGufxr zrzhLO95lYRJA8if97jB0QEJwtiv9YqYGSvRriFUVYqqLTErGVfffK/W5N87lj// 4JYedwcxGAj4iJhhrgkAXygMgoD37WSKPOaVk5e93w4I/FO3QgCCGQ== =eDJN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Finding a suitable filesystem ` Michael Whapples ` Joseph C. Lininger @ ` Joseph C. Lininger 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Joseph C. Lininger @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Hello again, I forgot to mention something I meant to write about before. You can use fat32 and get a small amount of control over who can access files in linux by using mount options. You can set the access mask, as well as the owner and group for all files. These aren't stored in the filesystem, so it's on a per-mount bases. But if it's just you accessing it, you can probably use fat32 and /etc/fstab to do what you need. This provides the best compatability if you need to use multiple operating systems with the drive. I don't recommend doing this on actual hard drives for a variety of reasons, but for something like a flash drive it works just fine. It's the solution I use myself. Joe -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQEVAwUBR4Jc4Mh8jNraUiwqAQpE9gf9EwGGwy4S/A5wM+1aUHXq7B0XZw+fIm1B M+E5Jqbslt+vLjy9hO7ML5zAnWnIBpn/+j8sDX9MtV3ouMtj3hONWTgsXpoQot9G ckvbebCbv5dTb4jfXju076GL9k9UGLZQkHse5kkLs39pXRSoeSdytmftcc6cgaGy 4658rFPr6kUMowJqjXGKgOh46VZMkPWom7r7cL5tm3TgjRfaUdw9RkDme2jFRwzN O7H2AyMGArnlnue5d0rTk3Nr8yTeS/rLCp87OQDEU6oGMcz0XtID/g4a3RdtqTGr 1x6JC6QV2QkU3AawyHLufhuoPwp9/DuuVn+wQ7aM69qIfNDOHjYiiw== =XeE0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Finding a suitable filesystem Finding a suitable filesystem Michael Whapples ` Gregory Nowak @ ` Alex Snow 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Alex Snow @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. I always format mine fat32 since I use them under both windows and unix and really don't care about permitions all that much on these devices. On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 05:46:15PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote: > Hello, > I am wondering what filesystem is best for a USB memory stick. The > problem is that fat/fat32 is very poor on the permissions, but most > systems can read/write it, whereas ntfs is poorly supported under Linux > (and I am not certain about how good the permission support is) and > things like ext3, reiserfs and other unix FSs aren't supported on > windows. So is there mount options for fat/fat32 which improves the case > somewhat under Linux, or might ntfs be a good compromise as most of the > Linux systems I will be using it on will be mine so I can install > ntfs-3g or other drivers (and windows 9x seems to have disappeared > sufficiently that I won't have too many of those), or is there a windows > driver for one of the unix filesystems (and if I want to be able to use > it on more than just my machine I suppose I could make a small fat32 > partition where I could have the driver available should a windows > machine not have it). > > Thanks for any pointers to information or advice people can give. > > From > Michael Whapples > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. -- From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
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Finding a suitable filesystem Michael Whapples
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` Alex Snow
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