Re: Q: NTFS?

Albert Cahalan (albert@ccs.neu.edu)
Fri, 22 Nov 1996 19:56:16 -0500 (EST)


> Hmm.. Anyone working on NTFS support for Linux?
> Bill Gates would be mad I guess.. ;)

Yes, Martin von l"owis loewis@informatik.hu-berlin.de and
others on the linux-ntfs@tiger.informatik.hu-berlin.de list.
That is a majordomo mailing list.

Right now, NTFS is working read-only. NT security features
are completely ignored, so comp.os.ms-windows.security readers
are a bit concerned. Compression is supported. The windows
people can really panic when I write a registry editor.

NTFS uses logging and B-trees almost everywhere. The log file
can run out of space, in which case all filesystem activity
must stop and incomplete transactions must be rolled back!
Then the log file can be cleared and restarted. Nobody on the
NTFS list knows how to make the Linux VFS layer undo and reissue
filesystem operations. Logging filesystem experts are needed.
(NTFS uses logging, but it is not a just a log) It seems that
stipped disks will be hard to support.