Only the openSUSE mount is able to mount UFS partitions read/write mode, but why?

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1

This phenomenon applies to Tumbleweed and Leap 15.

The mount commands from “all” other Linux distros (all Debian based, Ubuntu based, Arch based, even Fedora, Slackware, Void etc.) fail on this, they can only mount UFS partitions read-only. But why is the openSUSE mount able to do this?

I have OpenBSD installed on /dev/sdb3 and this works, I can read and write to /mnt


mount -t ufs -o ufstype=44bsd /dev/sdb3 /mnt

The same for GhostBSD installed on /dev/sdb4


mount -t ufs -o ufstype=ufs2 /dev/sdb4 /mnt

Why is the openSUSE mount so different? :wink: BTW I like this feature a lot, it makes data exchange with BSD just easy.

2

When you did choose for OTHER VERSION on starting this thread, the idea is that you then post first and foremost in the text which version of openSUSE you are using.

Also, please take into account that most people here are just openSUSE users. So many (most?) will not understand what you are talking about with respect to other distributions and/or BSD without extensive explanation (including showing) of what you do there. Let alone that they would know why something that (as you say) works on openSUSE does not work on other distributions they do not run.

3

I don’t actually know the answer. But I’ll guess that it is a compile time option for the kernel that allows this.

4

Code for BSD FS not included by default in other OS?? Probably available as a Kernel mod.

5

There is actually UFS support in most other Linux distros. So you can mount UFS partitions there, but only in read-only mode. That’s why I was quite astonished that you can mount UFS partitions with read and write access when using openSUSE Tumbleweed or Leap 15.

6

Well, most of us do tend to keep saying that openSUSE is better, which is why we use it.:wink:

7

This is a recent change in SUSE/openSUSE and I expect that it will be seen with newer kernels in other distributions.

It reflects an increased confidence in the reliability of writing to what has been a poorly defined filesystem; it is analogous to the situation with NTFS.

The UFS (formerly known as the BerkeleyFast File System) had been adopted and modified by Sun, National Semiconductor, Santa Cruz, Next etc. I personally remember incompatibilities while moving a hard drive (10MB Rodime) between real BSD (air-freighted tape spools from UC Berkeley), Nat-Semi and Xenix systems in 1984/5. I guess that nowadays only the documented Free/OpenBSD varieties are generally encountered.