partition formating

[Odyssey]

I have been including a FAT32 partition in each of my Ubunutu installations for the purpose of being able to provide a read/write area for both Windoze and Ubunutu (although so far I haven't made use of it), but I remember reading in the partitioning article link on Gina's "How To" webpage that there is software (called "FS" or something like that) that now handles this function with ntfs and linux.

If it obviates the need to have a FAT32 partition, all the better.

Has anyone had any experience with this and what results?

[Gina]

Only reading NTFS files otherwise no direct experience.

Ubuntu reads NTFS no problem and you can install write support. There is also a Windows driver to read/write Linux ext2/3 format files. So... FAT32 partitions are no longer needed :) I use Windows so rarely that I have no need to write to NTFS or access Linux files from Windows. However, my external USB backup drives are FAT32 as they were originally formatted (not wishing to reformat them). So I haven't any experience of either writing to NTFS (though often read them) or read/write ext3 from Windoze.

I can look up the info though and get back to you.

[Gina]

NTFS-3G (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009) for writing to NTFS from Linux
FS-Drive (http://www.fs-driver.org/) for reading/writing Linux ext2 or ext3 files from Windows

[Odyssey]

Thanks for the info and links. Your comment about USB drives begs a question. Does Ubuntu write to FAT32 without any particular instruction as long as the USB memory device is formatted FAT32?

[Gina]

Yes, no problem - and FAT16 too. Not sure about the very old 12 bit FAT. Think it must do - I think floppy format is FAT12.

[onomatopoeia]

Think it must do - I think floppy format is FAT12.

It is.

[Gina]

Thanks Mark :)