[ILUG] NTFS Write Support from linux.

[tony at vroon.org]

On 3/16/2005, "Lisa Muir" <34.24.34 at gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi Guys,
>
>Just wondering what the current status is on NTFS write support from
>linux, is this still experimental or is it mainstream in the various
>kernels yet?

There is safe *overwrite* support in the mainstream kernel, which means
you can change a file as long as the size remains identical (down to the
byte, yes). This is of limited use, you could change ID3v1 tags on MP3
files (not ID3v2, mind you, that changes the filesize). I believe
TopologiLinux uses a very big datafile in combination with a loopback
mount to have some use for this limited write support.
Should you need full write support, "Captive NTFS" uses a wrapper layer
to run the Windows NTFS driver .dll in linux. This is rather slow, but
has been reported to work fine.

>Its been such an issue for so long now that google searches etc throw
>up a lot of outdated links on the topic.

Most documentation is outdated, I agree with that. Work on the kernel
NTFS driver is still on-going, they have suspended their documentation
work to keep coding. But don't expect working write support overnight,
this will be introduced gradually.

>Lisa.
Tony.