Data exchange
Whenever there is more than one operatiing system (on one or more computer),
users have the need to exchange data between them.
The solutions on this page are NOT applicable for exchanging data across a network. The partition-type of the harddrives on the server is irrelevant to the client PC accessing it.
Visit our Samba tutorial to find out how to share files with windows-PCs across the network.
As a transport, we choose some kind of portable storage device, like a USB-harddrive or stick.
Just until recently, a windows formated FAT-partition was the way to go. Now, we have different
alternatives:
FAT
Still the easiest way to go is to tell Linux to access the FAT-partition that has been created under Windows. This does not provide the features we are used to under linux (permissions, ownership, …), but it usually works.
There are problems when partitions get larger than a certain size. Windows often does not create FAT-partitions in the sizes USB-disks come in these days. FAT is old and has grows, well let’s say ‘fat’ :) Microsoft support for it decreases.
MS even tried to patent FAT in order to make money from all the camera-vendors who use FAT for their digital cameras. IIRC, the patent did not stand in court, but it clearly is a message from MS that they don’t want the free world to use this filesystem anymore.
Still, for USB-sticks FAT is probably best, I don’t know how they like being fdisk’d.
For digital cameras, FAT is probably the only choice, because they expect it.
NTFS
Linux-support for NTFS is growing, but not perfect. There are no problems reading NTFS-partitions in Linux, writing has been a problem when I last tried, but these things might change.
Ext2/3
If the number of ‘receiving window machines’ is limited, you can use ext2 or even ext3 for your USB-drive. Linux-machines can use the partitions as usually with all the bells and whistles, and on Windows-boxes, you install this driver.
I have tried it on three dual-boot machines, and it simply works. WinXP and (according to the project’s homepage) Vista can read and write linux-partitions. No need to use any MS-format to exchange data anymore!
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tutorials/using/filesystems_for_data-exchange.txt · Last modified: 2008/03/25 21:25 by 91.19.131.39 (stwaidele)
Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
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