I was trying to create a NTFS partition for keeping some data files which I could also access from Windows (7). I see that there is no option in the YAST partitioner to create a NTFS partition. There is an option for FAT type partition. The KDE partitioner however has such an option.
Does anyone know why it is so, or is it just an oversight?
PrakashC
While there is some support (well, in fact a lot of support) to USE foreign file systems like NTFS, I assume that creating, managing and maintaining those file systems can best be done with the operating systems that they are native to.
That could well be a line of thought. But does not appear to be a sufficient reason. Most of the required resources will already be there to enable copying files from and to NTFS from other systems. And considering that KDE has included it, the issue is not likely to be licensing.
PrakashC
There is a huge difference between reading and writing files to an existing file system and creating and managing it.
I have no idea what KDE has. I do not think that KDE should try to do partitioning. That is not what DE software is for.
My not-so-good experience with creating or managing NTFS partitions from Linux supports this statement and I think that the choice made by YaST developers is a sensible one. BTW other Linux file formats not commonly used on (open)SUSE are not included.
Anyway you can use mkntfs over the command line and hope for the best. AFAIK the KDE partition manager or GParted on Gnome are just GUI interfaces to that program when dealing with NTFS creation.
While mkntfs can create a basic NTFS partition, I don’t know how many features of the filesystem it is really able to manage and how good it is at managing them at the moment.
So I am better off creating the partition from the Windows OS. Thanks hccv and OrsoBruno.
PrakashC