*nix OS need help

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Indred
Am i still correct that linux is not able to read NTFS I Know it can read Fat32 and I think it can read a few more but i don't know if any updates have enabled it to read NTFS

I think all current and "brand name" distros have built-in NTFS read support. NTFS write support is still experimental but NTFS-Fuse (Captive NTFS) claims to have stable NTFS write support because it wraps ntfs.sys.

 

[Nothinman]

Am i still correct that linux is not able to read NTFS I Know it can read Fat32 and I think it can read a few more but i don't know if any updates have enabled it to read NTFS

It's been able to read it just fine, it's writing that's problematic.

 

[Indred]

well i have a 200 g hdd formated with NTFS as my main drive which is going to be resized and partitioned for 2 versions if not 3 of linux aswell as kepping windows.
My 2nd hdd (4x 250g SATA RAID 0) is formated NTFS which has alot of different files including pictures of my familey and what not as well as games and stuff. My plan is just to copy all that stuff then reformat it to FAT32 I guess so i can read it in windows and Linux and then copy the stuff back. As far as the main drive with windows installed I think i'll be ok leaving it as NTFS. Thanks for your help

 

[SleepWalkerX]

You don't have to reformat it as fat32 to read and write with it in linux. You could always just implement captive-ntfs.. Whatever you feel like doing..

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
You don't have to reformat it as fat32 to read and write with it in linux. You could always just implement captive-ntfs.. Whatever you feel like doing..

Of course that is potentially dirty and potentially requires permission from Microsoft... Read your EULA.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

The whole licensing and eula behind Windows XP makes me want to barf whenever thinking about using anything windows-related.

Here's an interesting article disassembling Microsoft's Window's Eula although it doesn't specifically mentions this issue. And check out the Laws and Licensing Conditions section at the bottom of this captive-ntfs page. IANAL, but I think its legal to use captive-ntfs on an ntfs drive that already has the ntfs driver files on it. Who knows.. Send an email to Microsoft if you're curious about the legality.

If you don't mind reformatting you're drive, I'd recommend using fat32. Actually, with current tools out there like Ext2fsd you can have Windows be able to detect ext2 partitions like a fat32 or ntfs partitions and be able to read/write with them. Its another idea, but I'm not sure if it really makes a performance difference choosing ext2 rather than fat32.

 

[Indred]

Ok I have been doing some research and got my head so messed up. I'm trying to not only mount my HDA1 but i have 4 SATAs in RAID0 that i would like to mount. i know its 4am right now and i need to sleep but i didn't find any thing on how to install the drivers needed for linux to see the RAID0 much less mount it. I'm not looking for some one to hold my hand just a nice walk through (link) I'm sure some of these questions get asked alot. (even though i couldn't find crap lol ) thanks as always

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
You don't have to reformat it as fat32 to read and write with it in linux. You could always just implement captive-ntfs.. Whatever you feel like doing..

Of course that is potentially dirty and potentially requires permission from Microsoft... Read your EULA.

Plus the nftsprog stuff is suppose to be faster and maybe just plain better then the Windows drivers. Free software also.

Although I don't deal with ntfs much so I don't know for certain personally.

(note that with the ntfsprog stuff there is a FUSE version of it so you can mount any NTFS partition irregardless of NTFS support in the kernel. Most all relatively new 2.6 using distros will have a fuse module and there are no legal problems as far as the kernel is concerned.)

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Indred
Ok I have been doing some research and got my head so messed up. I'm trying to not only mount my HDA1 but i have 4 SATAs in RAID0 that i would like to mount. i know its 4am right now and i need to sleep but i didn't find any thing on how to install the drivers needed for linux to see the RAID0 much less mount it. I'm not looking for some one to hold my hand just a nice walk through (link) I'm sure some of these questions get asked alot. (even though i couldn't find crap lol ) thanks as always

It depends on the controller. Is it nice 'real raid' or is it 'fakeraid'.

Fakeraid are devices that impliment RAID in software drivers. They claim that they are raid controllers, but in fact the bios on them helps make drivers work.. Much like Winmodems.

This isn't so bad. (your central CPU is much faster then the proccessors they put on 'real' hardware raid) But in Linux it's worse since Linux software raid is much nicer the vast majority of the time (faster also).

Now there is limited support for these devices in the 'DM' portion of the kernel.. but it varies hardware to hardware. This is nice for when you dual boot with windows. Also some makers have propriatory drivers that will work with certain specific kernel/distro combinations.

So it depends heavily on the device in question.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What raid hardware are you using?

 

[drag]

Some links for the dmraid stuff for fakeraid...
http://linux-ata.org/faq-sata-raid.html
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/dmraid
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_with_NVRAID_using_dmraid
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

Dmraid stuff comes from Redhat I beleive. One of the developers have a webpage for it.
http://people.redhat.com/~heinzm/sw/dmraid/readme

Feature set:
------------
This software discovers, activates, deactivates and displays properties
of software RAID sets (eg, ATARAID) and contained DOS partitions.

dmraid uses libdevmapper and the device-mapper kernel runtime to create
devices with respective mappings for the ATARAID sets discovered.

The following ATARAID types are supported:

Adaptec HostRAID ASR
Highpoint HPT37X
Highpoint HPT45X
Intel Software RAID
JMicron JMB36x
LSI Logic MegaRAID
NVidia NForce
Promise FastTrack
Silicon Image Medley
VIA Software RAID

Beside hints, enhancement proposals and patches, I want to know, if the mappings
the tool creates ("dmraid -tay") are correct for your ATARAID configuration.

Thank you for your support of dmraid.

I don't know enough to give you very good directions. Check with your specific distro to find out the extent of dmraid support.

I STRONGLY suggest making very good backups (AND comfirming them.. There is nothign worse then making backups, having a failure, and then find out your backups suck) before doing Linux ntfs stuff and this dmraid stuff.

edit:

of course if your running 'real' hardware raid you wouldn't be using this stuff. This is only for BIOS-assisted or 'fakeraid' stuff.

edit2:

I like having a seperate file server for stuff like this. I have a desktop laptop and a server. The desktop I play around with and do odd things that cause problems. My laptop has limited disk space. So I like having a copy of everything on a nice safe raid5 array with tested ram and a UPS and such. Makes backups easier. Also good for dual booting since SAMBA works well with both Windows and Linux (and BSD and OS X and etc etc).

 

[Indred]

Well i have a DFI Expert Mobo with the on board SATA's. I ran the RAID set up from the boot (bios) there are two and i'll have to check which one i'm using next reboot. The only software i had to use in windows was to let it see it as one (the drivers) but for the best of my knowledge it was set up in the bios. Now i'm looking at making it a RAID 5 from RAID0 but that shouldn't be an issue unless it will make a differance in the drivers I install.