Microsoft's exFAT Is Still Crap On Linux

[disi]

But they have a really good looking workforce... http://www.tuxera.com/

[droidhacker]

I wonder who balmer bribed to put that crap into the sdxc spec?
Well no real matter, I'll just dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxccard first (because it wouldn't be proper unless the crap was FULLY annihilated...), then partition and format using a proper filesystem. Hmm, maybe ext4.

MS is facing eventual extinction. They have something of a grip on the desktop PC OS market, but that market is beginning to show signs of weakening, in the face of alternative devices like tablets, televisions, smartphones, etc., ALL of which are dominated by something that is distinctly NOT MS. In order for them to retain some grip on things they have no right to dominate, they need to resort to bribing their way into setting standards and collecting royalties. I see MS's place eventually being reduced to strictly patent trolling without any actual product.

It must be really freaky for them to see how Google has made a COMPLETE fool of them in the smartphone racket. They've been TRYING to break into that business since the 90's, and along comes Google to utterly dominate it only 3 years after entering. Just imagine how badly they will be off when LibreOffice completes their Android version..... 99.999% of people will have absolutely no more use for anything MS.

[DaemonFC]

I wonder who balmer bribed to put that crap into the sdxc spec?
Well no real matter, I'll just dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxccard first (because it wouldn't be proper unless the crap was FULLY annihilated...), then partition and format using a proper filesystem. Hmm, maybe ext4.

MS is facing eventual extinction. They have something of a grip on the desktop PC OS market, but that market is beginning to show signs of weakening, in the face of alternative devices like tablets, televisions, smartphones, etc., ALL of which are dominated by something that is distinctly NOT MS. In order for them to retain some grip on things they have no right to dominate, they need to resort to bribing their way into setting standards and collecting royalties. I see MS's place eventually being reduced to strictly patent trolling without any actual product.

It must be really freaky for them to see how Google has made a COMPLETE fool of them in the smartphone racket. They've been TRYING to break into that business since the 90's, and along comes Google to utterly dominate it only 3 years after entering. Just imagine how badly they will be off when LibreOffice completes their Android version..... 99.999% of people will have absolutely no more use for anything MS.

Probably the same people that made Microsoft Office XML an "international standard" when the version Office 2007/2010 use has nothing to do with the version standardized, requires Windows and MS Office to work fully, and the "standard" version can't even be read at all by 2007.

SDXC is an attempt to make the next generation of flash memory unusable outside Windows and OS X. You can't even license the proprietary and taxed Tuxera version without 1. Buying it in bulk. and 2. being the OEM of a device or the or distributor of an OS, not an individual user.

Unless the open source reverse engineered exFAT FUSE driver (which is currently read only) pans out, then that may well be the case. It will still end up driving users of free and open source software underground in order to use the flash memory device they paid for. The module is under the GPL 3, but since the people developing it don't hold any patents on it and Microsoft is not contributing to it, the user/distributor is not protected from Microsoft at all.

There have been some people noting that you can re-format exFAT SDXC flash storage devices to use FAT32, but devices conforming to the SDXC specification are only required to recognize FAT32 devices up to 32 GB because of backward compatibility with SDHC, which only requires the same. The 32 GB limit is also imposed by Windows when you go to format a new FAT32 file system. It is not really a limitation of FAT32, other operating systems and formatting software can take FAT32 all the way up to 2 TB, but you're still under no guarantee that your tablet, camera, portable media player, etc. will recognize the huge FAT32 file system.

To quote George Carlin, "You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care."

In fact, you'll get people defending Microsoft's abuse, they call themselves "BSD" and "Solaris" promoters, but they really have a Microsoft fetish and a fetish for anything Microsoft releases no matter how much of an insult it is or how much of an injury it causes to open standards.

Back on point. I don't use FAT or exFAT and I will not use them. Ever. My USB thumbdrive is Ext4, my Micro SDHC card is Ext4, and by the way, Android reads and writes to that just fine. As long as you depend on Microsoft software and Microsoft-tampered device standards, you can't win. You're playing their game on their turf by their rules. If they don't get you to give up and use Windows or another platform they can tax such as OS X or anyone that pays Tuxera or Novell, then you're shut out or driven underground because of malicious US copyright and patent laws. Fine. I don't need them anyway. Ballmer can go suck eggs.

I hope this helps.

[johnc]

Yeah I just get a bit queasy thinking about storing my data on a closed-spec filesystem. The only reason MS is still afloat is because it has a hook in almost everyone. Their products are generally crap and built around incompatibility. I think I'm pretty much at my patience limit for incompatibility. I'd like to have all of my devices play nicely together, if that isn't too much to ask.

[DaemonFC]

Yeah I just get a bit queasy thinking about storing my data on a closed-spec filesystem. The only reason MS is still afloat is because it has a hook in almost everyone. Their products are generally crap and built around incompatibility. I think I'm pretty much at my patience limit for incompatibility. I'd like to have all of my devices play nicely together, if that isn't too much to ask.

Microsoft does "build a bridge" to free and open source software, then they stick a Tuxera or Novell toll booth on both ends. They get a cut. Nobody else gets a patent license, specifications, or a test suite. SUSE and OpenSUSE are both contaminated with a ton of this crap. I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by leaving Windows for any flavor of SUSE.

[phred14]

<snip>

Back on point. I don't use FAT or exFAT and I will not use them. Ever. My USB thumbdrive is Ext4, my Micro SDHC card is Ext4, and by the way, Android reads and writes to that just fine. As long as you depend on Microsoft software and Microsoft-tampered device standards, you can't win. You're playing their game on their turf by their rules. If they don't get you to give up and use Windows or another platform they can tax such as OS X or anyone that pays Tuxera or Novell, then you're shut out or driven underground because of malicious US copyright and patent laws. Fine. I don't need them anyway. Ballmer can go suck eggs.

I hope this helps.

Then realize that you've limited your choice of cameras, particularly at the high-end DSLR. So far we've been talking about SDXC, which can be avoided by giving up a little density. The high-end cameras have often used Compact Flash, but that too is running out of steam. The new standard at the high-end is "XQD", which uses pci-express as a transfer protocol. I can't find a reference now, but I believe I saw that it will use exFAT as a filesystem. Given that it's designed for after Compact Flash runs out of steam, I can't believe it would use FAT32.

So for right now that rules out the Nikon D4, and I'm sure it will rule out the next-generation Canon, etc, etc.

For my purposes I suspect the read-only FUSE exFAT driver will suffice. I only ever write my digital camera media from the camera itself, it's always read-only at the computer, for me. I've heard of problems when using anything other than the camera to write the digital media.

[gregzeng]

I just have to wonder if Micheal is retarded or simpy trying to create a negative image of Linux / Open Source, this 'article' is a goddamn joke. Claiming that Linux 'still doesn't have 'proper' extFAT support'. Proper? As in in-kernel support? He knows full and well that the reason Linux doesn't have in-kernel support for exFAT or NTFS is that they are patented proprietary Microsoft filesystems and that including them would open up a new possible attack vector for Microsoft (you know, that company which is running around threatening to sue Linux using companies over patents unless they pay up). And yet while fully knowing this he uses it to attack Linux.

Meanwhile, just like with NTFS, exFAT is fully supported on Linux through fuse which is a file-system implementation OUTSIDE of the kernel, where it belongs given it's patented and proprietary nature.


<SNIP>

I use a desktop replacement notebook. Portable PC's outsell desktops & mainframes for the last several years. So most users of newish computers have authorized M$ operating systems, IMO.

ATM I multiboot, favoring Xubuntu + Cairo + Compiz, but use NTFS-M$-compressed partitions for my data. Seems you do not know about Linux users who are also authorised M$ users.

[TheBlackCat]

I use a desktop replacement notebook. Portable PC's outsell desktops & mainframes for the last several years. So most users of newish computers have authorized M$ operating systems, IMO.

ATM I multiboot, favoring Xubuntu + Cairo + Compiz, but use NTFS-M$-compressed partitions for my data. Seems you do not know about Linux users who are also authorised M$ users.

I don't see how this is relevant to the legal issues with including a patent-encumbered filesystem in the kernel.

[Adarion]

[/h]
You probably meant: It's still crap.

Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to say.