From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 24 18:47:37 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 285931065674 for ; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:47:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jrisom@gmail.com) Received: from mail-gx0-f182.google.com (mail-gx0-f182.google.com [209.85.161.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C68C48FC1D for ; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:47:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: by gxk24 with SMTP id 24so3148329gxk.13 for ; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:47:36 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=mQ2DRgHbff6zFTfEhP2dhPwXgrJbZqvP67EfTTmxNOw=; b=eIuQRK7PNz0Vmng6DrPW1mXAZP0ikmrTZOQwsIcXpjWuFrL9/SSZePUHar+f1yDd+7 3/F0OEthdPJzhQs7eMP5LmCnOC3kNUvpPW9Dj3QWlE5k1MoH2Ibt1GkmCyiFEx4UHRDK A0dshG3ZB4qflUzUH0VPJG3S2cefB149hz7Hs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=P0bILcYaRwQug51s24PrgL4nsf9Vb2F3U4KCWTXcV+0vlEH333Wyts9D1BgL4zOhOU Gsf6sWZ1kuO+wbrxCJ4tf5/ybYxOCsAn8PDmlBCSFvrWXgEr2vRNqzkpxR15gmZ7KRf2 twsRwsu8tqm3x4+O0zj1WPbExWxS0efqeM9cQ= Received: by 10.100.134.1 with SMTP id h1mr7739650and.105.1282675655857; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:47:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (c-24-14-170-47.hsd1.il.comcast.net [24.14.170.47]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id x33sm498397ana.33.2010.08.24.11.47.34 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:47:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4C7413C5.8030409@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:47:33 -0500 From: Joshua Isom User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100802 Thunderbird/3.1.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4c739685.g1aaLUnEPIT1pDne%mueller6727@bellsouth.net> In-Reply-To: <4c739685.g1aaLUnEPIT1pDne%mueller6727@bellsouth.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Lingua franca file system Linux-NetBSD-FreeBSD? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:47:37 -0000 On 8/24/2010 4:53 AM, Thomas Mueller wrote: > What is the best choice for a file system that can be read, and safely written to, by Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD? > > With NetBSD through 5.1_RC3, I got "unsupported inode size" when trying to mount Linux ext2fs partition from NetBSD. > > With FreeBSD through 7.2, I could mount, but got "Bad file descriptor" when trying to access the Linux partition. With FreeBSD 8.0, I could mount and read the Linux partition, but in the only attempt to write to the ext2fs partition, I was editing a file with vi, and when I tried to write (save), the file was truncated. I was able to recover by saving to FreeBSD file system and copying to msdos (FAT32) partition and subsequently copying to the Linux partition (this was a nonbootable USB stick used for data rather than Linux installation). I haven't tried under FreeBSD 8.1 yet. > > Would I have better luck using newfs_ext2fs from NetBSD or FreeBSD and possibly getting a flavor of ext2fs more to BSD's liking? This would be for data as opposed to Linux installation. > > There is the obvious possibility of using msdos (FAT32); I could run FreeDOS on such a partition as well as using the partition to share data between Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD, and FreeDOS too. Drawback is some problems getting long file names straight, and lack of case sensitivity. But maybe FAT32 is the safest choice? > > Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD are supposed to be able to read and write NTFS partition, but I see from a very recent thread on this list, subject "Re: External HD", that writing to NTFS partition is very dangerous, and I figure that would be also true for NetBSD and Linux, and any other non-MS-Windows-NT-line OS that might have support for NTFS. > > There is also the caveat that such a data-sharing partition would have to be in a primary or extended/logical slice/partition, since Linux seems unable to read BSD disklabels, and NetBSD and FreeBSD can't read each other's disklabels. Also, Linux and the BSDs go separate ways with some newer file systems (ext4fs, btrfs, jfs in Linux; zfs in FreeBSD). > > Tom One other possibility is using UDF on the disk. It's forgotten about but I believe it's more interoperable and "unix-compatible" than fat32 or the rest.