i.e. is the disk formatting tool simply offering a menu of choices based on what the kernel supports, or will specific development be required to offer exfat support via the Yast GUI?
transferring my ‘main’ environment over from Windows to Linux whilst still requiring my data drives to be portable, so exfat seems like a good option seeing as TW isn’t letting me write to NTFS by default.
thanks. JBT
As far as I know you better manage your non-Linux file systems on a native (in this case MS Windows?) system. Use those file systems on Linux only for transferring data to and from a non-Linux environment.
i accept the point as a matter of principle, but will there be any problem in practice once exfat is in the kernel?
Writing to NTFS has been supported for years … But… you would have to disable Windows Fastboot, since that leaves an unclean filesystem after reboot into linux.
I am not sure what your original questions has to do with Kernel support. I assume the kernel will then support reading/writing, creating and deleting files on an exfat file system.
But creating (making) one is a different kind of thing that involves writing direct into the blocks of the device and needs no special support from the kernel. So, anybody, including you, can make and support a mkfs.exfat program at this moment already.
AFAIK YaST relies on gparted which only detects, copies and moves exfat partitions; creating is not available - https://gparted.org/features.php
Yast relies on libstorage-ng, which already has support for exFAT. As mentioned earlier, it simply calls mkfs.exfat, so it is unrelated to kernel support in any way.
i tried to delete a file in an NTFS partition from TW a few days ago, it wouldn’t let me…
Re: your earlier question - there has been some chatter recentlly about kernel 5.4 introducing support for exfat, leading me to presume it was not there before.
Re: the OP - i have an interest in keeping my data portable (accessible from either system in a dual-boot), and exfat seemed the best choice?
Obvs - from what your saying it may still require a judgement over which OS will be the primary from which I will [manage] my data, as alt-File_System support may only be reliable for read-only operations…
That is a different question, which would require a different thread (if you want to show your problem to the world using a relevant title to draw the attention of the helpers you need)… And of course it would require information from you on how the NTFS file system was mounted (which will then include information on which owning user:group and which permissions are faked on that file system) and how a user tried to remove that file (which would then show the user, the statement used, etc.)
I any case this sort of questions requires knowledge on the very basic Unix/Linux principles of file ownership (by user and group) and the permissions (read/write/execute by user/group/world). Something that every Linux system maintainer should have at her/his fingertops.
And I repeat my personal idea on this. Use non-Linux file systems only for the occasional exchange of data between Linux systems and non-Linux systems. That could be on e.g. an USB stick that you cary between systems, or on a Windows file system on the same disk in a multi-boot situation. But keep it to the absolute minimum.
What is the use of having a secure Linux system when you constantly want to exchange data with an unsecure Windows system?
You said “i accept the point as a matter of principle,”, but a the same time want to forget asap what a principle is. 