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Data Storage Microsoft Software Linux

Knoppix Variant Offers Full NTFS Write Support 100

Posted by timothy from the like-a-hot-swiss-army-knife-through-butter dept.
mache writes "Full NTFS write support for Knoppix is under discussion on Knoppix Ideas forum and it looks that Knopper will include Captive into Knoppix 3.4. The best part of Live CD with full NTFS write support is that it actually exists in LinuxDefender, a remastered Knoppix distribution made by Bitdefender, presented at LinuxConf 2003, the annual Romanian Linux Users Group (RLUG) conference."
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Knoppix Variant Offers Full NTFS Write Support More

Knoppix Variant Offers Full NTFS Write Support

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  • what I still don't understand sbout Knoppix... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BigGerman ( 541312 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:50PM (#7939052)
    ..is how it can offer better hardware detection and often better features than other, "commercial" Linux distros?
    Anyone has internal information on how Knoppix is developed and maintained?
  • Doesn't the kernel now support this natively?

    • Nope (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:56PM (#7939111)
      As always, NTFS read-only works fine, writing is very limited unless you want to corrupt your filesystem. Knoppix would be using an approach that uses Microsoft's ntfs.sys to handle writing. Of course, you need Windows installed (or at least a copy of ntfs.sys) for this to work.

      • Re:Nope (Score:4, Informative)

        by Josh Booth ( 588074 ) <joshbooth2000&yahoo,com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:10PM (#7939243)
        Well... I just downloaded 2.6.1 and the help note in menuconfig says that nobody has had any problem with the NTFS writing, since it is limited to not changing the file size or creating new files. This is different from earlier kernels which pretended that they knew how to write NTFS and would actually mess up your partition. It says they have no reports of corruption, though :-)

      • Re:Nope (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Just curious:

        How well does NTFS read-only work?

        Does it support > 2GB NTFS files on x86 machines?

        If it does stuff like that reliably then I might consider using it for certain sort of backups. In many cases I won't be too bothered about permissions and the other stuff.

        • Re:Nope (Score:3, Insightful)

          by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 )
          I've got a 20gig ext2, 60gig ext3, and 20gig win2k3.

          Debian reads all three fine.
          Windows reads all three fine.
          • He said files bigger than 2 GB, not partitions. :)
          • How does Windows read the Linux partitions? Last I checked, Windows couldn't read those.
            • http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd

              Not native windows, but decently fast. My only problem is 1) need to 'net start ext2fsd' on boot (I'm sure there is probably a way to automate it, but I'm no windows admin). 2) Winamp5 seems to list my songs double when using the jump feature.
              Its fast enough that I can watch high quality por^H^H^Hmovies off of it without lag or excess system load.
              • I think Windows will still run the autoexec.bat file on boot, if it exists. You could put that line in there. If not that, one of the .ini files should do.

                What I'm saying is, I doubt it's very hard to automate -- a couple minutes of googling (that I haven't bothered with) would probably do it. Any of us who have to use Windows (at work or otherwise), may as well make it work (as much as possible) the way we want...

      • Of course, you need Windows installed (or at least a copy of ntfs.sys) for this to work.

        Which of course it would be. If the file wasn't there, what use would NTFS read or write be on the system anyway?
    • nopes, just "partially" as in: "allmost nothing"

      The new driver, introduced in 2.5.11, has some write code, but it's very limited. The driver can overwrite existing files, but it cannot change the length, add new or delete existing files.

      http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html#3 .2 [sourceforge.net]

  • Legality? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:52PM (#7939068)
    If I'm skimming the Captive homepage to quickly, but it seems to me like Captive is using Microsoft DLL's to read/write NTFS filesystems.

    Seems to me like that would or will violate the Microsoft EULA and leave Knoppix users open to problems if MS changes parts of these DLLs in subsequent service packs or releases.

    • Re:Legality? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:59PM (#7939133)
      It's not a DLL, but yeah, it's Microsoft's driver. The trick is that Knoppix isn't distributing this file, but rather searching your Windows partition for it.
      • So Knoppix isn't violating the EULA, the user is by running Knoppix?

        Seems like a bad idea to me.

        • Re:Legality? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by HolyCoitus ( 658601 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:42PM (#7939477)
          It would seem unlikely that the EULA would have something in it saying that you are only allowed to use those drivers with the single operating system they came with.... Even if it did, I really doubt that would be completely enforceable? I mean, it isn't reasonable to assume that on the same computer, you can't use those drivers from an operating system that you own to access a hard drive that you own?
          • funny, that's the same thing people say about watching their legally bought dvds on linux, but (though it hasn't been tested in court iirc) it is technically illegal to do so.

            not saying i don't totally agree with you; i'm just playing devil's advocate.
            • Umm... it has been tested in a Norwegian court (and deemed legal), and you're thinking of watching their CSS-encrypted legally-bought DVDs, which may be illegal in the US (but not in Norway), thanks to the DMCA.
              • sorry, was i being US-centric? whoops. sorry, but norwegian court rulings don't really hold water here. and yes, i was referring to the fact that it is technically illegal in the US to decrypt a CSS-encrypted DVD using unlicensed hardware/software because of that awful DMCA thing.

                am i US-centric? yes. that's where i live, that's where /. is based, and that's where most of /.'s readership lives. forgive me if i don't explicitly state that the information i present is not necessarily applicable outsid
          • Enforceable or not, who has the resources to go toe to tow with MS legal.

            • Enforceable or not, who has the resources to go toe to tow with MS legal.

              IBM.

              What do I win?
            • You could also bring up the question, as to why would MS legal want all that bad press for something like that? If they target someone who can't defend themselves, there is a huge risk for it blowing up in their face. If they pick on someone who can defend themselves, they'll probably lose the case. That's a lose-lose situation for them, no matter who they target.

          • Re:Legality? (Score:3, Informative)

            by jdray ( 645332 )
            IIRC, MS put some blarney in the latest Office licenses that said it was only legal to use Office on a Windows platform. One would assume that the Office for Mac licenses read differently, but anyone using WINE to run Office XP is (as I said, IIRC and IANAL) violating the license agreement.
          • Not allowed to use it without an installed copy of NT (or another OS with that file) - probably legal. Not allowed to use it at all even if you own a copy of NT... probably not.

            Then again, it could be a grey area... it's like the "am I allowed to mod my XBox, am I allowed to help other people mod theirs to use it for what the want" issue.
    • It is legal. The technique used by captive has been used by other products, such as the Systems Internals NTFSdos product. MS works with and even promotes this company so they can't now complain when others do the same thing.

      • Re:It is legal (Score:3, Interesting)

        by irgu ( 673471 )
        Varies on country. Read the EULA. If it's valid in your country it's apparently a violation.

        However the EULA also states that any use of the software not expressly granted to the end user is reserved by Microsoft. This way Microsoft can say OK for friends and NO for competitors. Did you already forget when Microsoft threatened MS Visual FoxPro users some months ago who used the same trick?

        Ditch Microsoft then no such troubles.

  • What is LinuxDefender and how can the best part of full read/write NTFS support be that it exists in Knoppix, which is then turned into this LinuxDefender thing?

    I mean, realistically, wouldn't the best part of full read/write NTFS support be the fact that it exists?

    • English is not the poster's native language. Yes, the wording doesn't make sense. Cut him some slack.
    • Well, among other things, it contains a antivirus, BitDefender, therefore can easily be used as a rescue-cd by those who got infected and their system does not work properly any-more.

      Just my 2 euro-cents.
  • I hope accomplishing this didn't involve modifying undocumented internal structures [asp.net].

    Raymond Chen will be pissed.

  • Currently downloading LinuxDefender and it's very, very slow; most likely Slashdotted. (1-3 KB/s on a 80-90 KB/s DSL line...)

    Could a kind soul who has already gotten it please make a torrent out of it? Thanks!

  • Will this driver speed up the creation of a native one?

    Since now NTFS.SYS is working under Linux although through emulation it should be quite easy to spy to what it's doing, and try to improve the native driver based on that.
      • Will this driver speed up the creation of a native one? Since now NTFS.SYS is working under Linux although through emulation it should be quite easy to spy to what it's doing, and try to improve the native driver based on that.
      IMHO it won't help much. The native driver developers say, they have the knowledge but not the time to finish the driver. NTFS is quite complex.
    • I don't think this really changes anything. They've always had the ability to single-step/reverse engineer the windows NTFS driver, it's not like they lacked that ability before. But that's a very daunting task, regardless of whether you do it in Windows or in Linux, because it's a complicated filesystem and the driver is pretty big. It's like saying, "Hey! We got these great new backpacks for our climb to the top of Everest! They're red instead of our old ones which were black. But otherwise they're t

  • Linux "Switcher" CD's (Score:4, Interesting)

    by devinjones ( 13739 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @07:53PM (#7941366)
    I see this as a crucial part of a "Switcher" CD that lets home users convert from Windows to Linux in small steps:
    1. Boot from CD to try it out.
    2. Convert to dual boot. There would be a utility to re-partition, install and configure for dual-boot. Let the user keep it dual-boot while they find substitutes for any Windows-only programs that Wine can't handle.
    3. Convert to Linux only
    You could give these out like AOL disks and slowly convert the installed base. There could be a utility to detect existing win32 programs and check their status in the Wine application list.

    This would be the logical extension to Bruce Perens' UserLinux idea.

    • Re:Linux "Switcher" CD's (Score:4, Insightful)

      by /dev/trash ( 182850 ) on Sunday January 11, 2004 @12:49PM (#7945379) Homepage Journal
      Step 3 would never come for me, or a majority of users because of games and financial software.
      • Maybe not for everyone, but WineX and Crossover Office can fix those problems for a lot of people.
        • Or a games console - IMHO console game ranges are much more abundant and generally of a higher quality. Anything that they struggle to do, like FPS online games with customisable maps, are generally ported to Linux or run well under WineX like you say. Even this is changing. I believe the next iteration of consoles will kill PC gaming for ever, and not before time.
      • I can't even stay on step two, crappy ACPI support drives me crazy.
        • Not saying this would affect you personally, but I've found my headaches with ACPI have gone away with 2.6. Whereas I used to have to turn it off in BIOS to keep the machine from crashing, it now works flawlessly. YMMV.
          • Does sleep and/or hibernate work yet? My single biggest issue with any Linux distro I've tried is that I can't close the lid of my laptop and have it go to sleep. Depending on machine and distro either X would get all messed up, or absolutely nothing would happen, as is the case with my current machine.
            • Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't got my laptop loaded with Linux as I haven't had the time it'd take to get my wifi card, etc working, and my I have so many desktops running at any given time, I wouldn't really notice if one was up or not. It does seem to kick into a sort of sleep-like state when it's not crunching though. Like I said, my crashes went away, but I don't know where laptop support is at right now.
    • Except that Bruce Perens is just a talking head, as seen by that fact that he 'manages' and 'organizes' but doesn't 'produce'.
      • Not to try and sound like I'm defending Mr. Perens, as I don't really know the man, nor much about him, but I would say that, in the battle for the desktop, organization will win out. Microsoft, for all their other ills, is way ahead here, and attacking with strategies born from chaos theory (our community's current methods) doesn't seem to be working.

        I did a little reading on the UserLinux site, and I don't have much argument at all with what Mr. Perens has to say, nor how he says it. Okay, now I guess
    • Knoppix is *almost* there. I've recently been playing with it, and other than a lack of shortcut to the correct script (say, "Install Knoppix to Hard Drive" or something), your steps are precisely what I've done. Well, I'm still at step 2, but whatever. So far Knoppix had a better time with the video on my laptop than any other distro (unsupported ATI chipset, need to use the stock VESA driver, but most distros end up with a shitty resolution and "letterboxing" around the entire screen).

      It's actually prett
        1. On the menu go to Knoppix -> Root Terminal
        2. type qtparted and press Enter
        If someone can use Partition Magic, they should be comfortable with QTParted, it even resizes NTFS.

  • pagefile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hitchhacker ( 122525 ) on Sunday January 11, 2004 @05:06AM (#7943654) Homepage

    Now that there is reliable NTFS write support, maybe we could get a kernel modification to use the pagefile.sys as a swap partition.

    mkswap /mnt/ntfs/pagefile.sys
    swapon /mnt/ntfs/pagefile.sys

    What about using the windows temp directory for storage of highly used apps and libs?

    -metric

    • Re:pagefile (Score:2, Informative)

      by irgu ( 673471 )
      The difference isn't reliability but functionality. The rewritten NTFS code is reliable but it's incomplete, it gives "permission denied" or "not supported" for most of the write operations.

      The commands, you wrote, should work with either driver without any kernel modification but Captive NTFS is much slower.

    • You could do that, but I would think it would make your swap partition pretty slow...

    • Re:pagefile (Score:2, Informative)

      by kiwi_mcd ( 655047 )
      I agree that it would be a good use of the disk space but there is a problem with this in that most of the time pagefile.sys is not a fixed size or location - the file can change location on disk and be fragmented. As a side note for those using Windows regularly (I know it is not so many of this crowd ;-) ) then I would recommend making the swap space in Windows a fixed size and then defragmenting using a good defragmenter (Microsoft one probably won't do it).

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