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General discussion

Common FileSystem?

Sep 8, 2005 10:58PM PDT

Is there any File system common to both Windows and Linux? I have a 37.2GB HDD partitioned 9.3 (C: Windows XP Home Edition, NTFS), 18.6 (D: Songs, etc, NTFS) and 9.3 (F: Redhat Linux 9, ext3). I have a lot of songs in D: as mentioned earlier and would like to play them on Linux as well, but the unfortunate fact is that Linux doesn't support NTFS (that's what it looks like). Is there any common Filesystem so both can share files?
Also, OpenOffice.org (Linux Office Suite) boasts of compatibility with the MS Office Applications, but how will that be possible if they cant recognize each others' file systems? Please suggest a solution. Help in plain english would be appreciated, I'm not pretty much familiar with technical terms.

Discussion is locked

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Try fat32
Sep 8, 2005 11:25PM PDT

First, I don't profess to be a Linux guru, but I'm pretty sure both Linux and, of course, Windows can read and write to fat32. Linux is able to read ntfs, but not write to ntfs (actually I think you can do some tweaking and make some distros write to ntfs, but I'm afraid I can't tell you much more on that). Windows, to the best of my knowledge, is unable to read or write to any of the native Linux file systems (I could very well be wrong about that as well), but try Fat32, I think that will work. As far as Open Office, it's pretty much the same deal, Open Office will open MS Office apps, and you have the option to save Open Office apps in MS Office formats, but MS Office will not open Open Office formats. Hope that answers your questions - Gary

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or this might work
Sep 9, 2005 12:15AM PDT

I've been thinking about what you want to do and it seems to me that if you have SAMBA installed you should be able to mount your D NTFS partition and play your music straight from there. You will not be able to add to the collection from Linux, but if all you want to do is play the music I think that would be the simplest solution. I use Amarok as my music player and I do the same thing (kinda) I dual boot Fedora core 4 (hda) and SUSE 9.3 (hdb) with a third hard drive (hdd) where I store my music. I set Amarok to play from hdd and I can access the collection from both Fedora and SUSE.

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novice city down here
Sep 9, 2005 1:51AM PDT

hold on.....what's all this SAMBA n all? is it a software or a filesystem? please explain and recommend from where I can obtain it.

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Bad old FAT32.
Sep 9, 2005 12:18AM PDT

That's about as common as it gets. Even the current Apples can deal with it.

Bob

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Accessing Hard Drives....?
Sep 9, 2005 1:47AM PDT

Ok, now in Windows, you click on My Computer to navigate through the Hard Disks. What about Linux (rber, ver 9)? Where do I go to access the Hard Drives? (I told you I'm a novice, so please don't laugh if the answer is simple.)

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Same thing. But depends on your selection of linux.
Sep 9, 2005 2:12AM PDT

Here I just click on the desktop's icon of the hard disk.

Bob

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You may need to download and install
Sep 9, 2005 3:29AM PDT

the NTFS kernel module first, create your directory, make an etc/fstab entry, and finally create the icon on your desktop. Yeah I know it sounds complicated but it's not really. I'm not using Redhat, but Fedora core4, so the procedure should be about the same. I installed the ntfs kernel module using yum, then I created the directory /mnt/windows. You can do this from the root terminal ''mkdir mnt/windows'' (without quotes) you could choose any name really, such as mnt/music, in which case you would type ''mkdir /mnt/music'' into a terminal as root. Then I made the etc/fstab entry

/dev/sda1 /mnt/windows ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0

in my case. In your case the /dev/sda1 may be /dev/hda3 or something like that, to find out what, as root open a terminal and type ''fdisk -l'' (again without quotes) you will see the windows partition, the /mnt/windows entry would be whatever you created. Then to create an icon on the desktop you simply right click on the desktop, choose: create new/link to device/hard disc device then click the ''device'' tab at the top then choose the device from the drop down window. I hope that helps - Gary

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Didn't need that.
Sep 9, 2005 3:39AM PDT

Suse 9.x can browse NTFS just fine without that.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Bob

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Yeah I know
Sep 9, 2005 5:21AM PDT

I have SUSE 9.3 installed as well and could browse NTFS out of the box, but with my Fedora system I had to go through all of this, so I'm thinking that compunut90 might have to do the same thing. After typing it all out though I'm thinking it may be just as easy to save all of his music elsewhere and format the D partition Fat32. Good luck, whichever way - Gary

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bottomline
Sep 9, 2005 1:12PM PDT

so the bottomline is that i gotta format my disk to FAT32 and then use it with Linux, or download SUSE (wteva) and use it to read an NTFS partition directly. rite? where do i get SUSE from?
p.s.: with SUSE, will i be able to read as well as write to an NTFS partition?

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Yum....NTFS kernel?
Sep 9, 2005 1:51PM PDT

What's all that yum...ntfs kernel module n all? where do i get those from?

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Sorry for the confusion,
Sep 9, 2005 9:49PM PDT

I'll try to clear things up a bit. You can either move everything off of your D partition and format it FAT32 then move everything back and you will be able to read and write to the partition from either Linux or Windows. This may be the simplest solution after all. You could also dwnld the ntfs kernel module and follow the instuctions in my earlier post to be able to read your existing ntfs partition while in Linux. I think you would then be able to play the songs while in Linux but would not be able to write to the ntfs partition. I downloaded the ntfs module for my Fedora Core system using yum (Yellow Dog Update Manger), it is used by many distributions to update and install new programs. This is a standard commad line feature of Fedora and, I'm almost sure, Redhat as well. The NTFS kernel module is what you may need to add the ability to your kernel to read NTFS filesystems. If this is the route you decide to take, I suggest you do a bit of research first. Google for yum and you will find pages of material telling you all about the various commands and repositories. You may also want to consider installing a graphical interface for yum such as yumex or K yum, some prefer this method. Then Google the Redhat NTFS kernel module. After you have read up on the subjects you may want to open a terminal, log in as root, and type this ''yum install kernel-module-ntfs-$(uname -r)'' (without quotes). As for a question you asked earlier, SUSE is another Linux distribution, it has the NTFS kernel module already included. I urge you to do a bit of research on these subjects, I'm not trying to avoid the questions, and I don't mind telling you what little I know, that's what the Linux community is all about, people helping people, but there is so much more information out there. Hope this helps a bit - Gary

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ntfs...ok, fat32?
Sep 10, 2005 1:00AM PDT

as per your suggestion, i downloaded the NTFS module for linux kernel, installed it, gave the commands etc. the drive(s) mounted perfectly, but in read-only mode. are you 100% sure that linux will read AND WRITE to a fat32 volume? if you are, i might consider a reformat, as I need to transfer a lot of files from linux to windows. alternatively, it would be nice of you to suggest a program (whatever) which could help me read an ext3 filesystem using windows. both would work out fine. itz upto your recommendation. Thanks in advance.

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are you 100% sure that linux will read AND WRITE to a fat32
Sep 10, 2005 1:26AM PDT

"are you 100% sure that linux will read AND WRITE to a fat32 volume?"

Almost every distro of linux does this. Can I ask how you came to think it didn't?

Bob

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Good work,
Sep 10, 2005 3:35AM PDT

Glad you were able to mount the NTFS partition, I said it was only going to be readable, but you should still be able to play your music from there by directing your player to search the partition for your music. Yes I am sure that Linux will read and write to FAT32. As far as a way to read ext3 filesytems in Windows, I did a Google search and found this information:

http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html

I have never tried it so I'm afraid I can't tell you more. Hope this Helps - Gary