
The exFAT filesystem is coming to Linux - notRobot
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/the-exfat-filesystem-is-coming-to-linux-paragon-softwares-not-happy-about-it/?hn
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rwmj
LWN has some good coverage of the licensing and technical aspects:
[https://lwn.net/Articles/797963/](https://lwn.net/Articles/797963/)

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gumby
I tried to put the license and patent info into the Wikipedia page on exFAT a
few years ago and it was reverted a few minutes later as “not germane”.
Hmm...I decided not to try again.

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mthoms
How does this square with Microsoft removing or deprecating exFAT support from
Windows [0]? Isn't the whole point to have a file system with cross-platform
support? I mean, is Microsoft being nefarious by allowing exFAT to come to
Linux while at the same time beginning to drop support in Windows? Or am I
reading too much into this?

[0]: I came across the comment below yesterday and was able to verify that any
mention of exFAT has been removed from the official "diskpart" documentation.

> _Well it appears that Windows 10 support for exFAT has been dropped in a
> recent update. The option no longer appears in the drive format dialog, nor
> does it appear in the diskpart utility. Any mention of exFAT has been
> expunged from the official diskpart documentation making me believe that
> Microsoft has officially terminated support for it, even so I cannot find
> any official announcements or confirmations of that._ source -
> [https://superuser.com/a/1420186](https://superuser.com/a/1420186)

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zaarn
A comment on that response explains it; some partitions marked for NTFS
filesystems will not allow it to be formatted as exFAT, it's still present on
the latest version AFAICT.

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freehunter
By far the worst part of using Linux, Windows, and Mac is trying to find a
compatible filesystem for them. Every time I have a file on my Mac that I need
to transfer to Windows or from Windows to Linux, trying to write to a
filesystem that is supported by all three platforms is just an exercise in
frustration.

~~~
frutiger
Sadly (or not sadly depending on your perspective), most people today will use
a remote host via Google Drive or DropBox (or even email) and not have this
problem.

~~~
interestica
It's absolutely insane that this is the most painless workaround in 2020

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int_19h
The article quotes Paragon's blog post without linking to it. Here's the
original:

[https://www.embedded-computing.com/guest-blogs/three-
cases-w...](https://www.embedded-computing.com/guest-blogs/three-cases-where-
the-open-source-model-didnt-work)

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backspace_
Fourth time this has popped up. Here is the previous discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22688058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22688058)

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coretx
It's no coincidence that his is being pushed so aggressively. This change is
about to break tons of userland & competition, just not at Microsoft.

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ggm
Break userland? Sorry.. explanation?

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coretx
Differences in implementations already cause problems. Adding one will not
mitigate this problem, only worsen it. A bit like this
[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/) Furthermore, anything
contemporary should steer away from this heavily outdated technology unless
they desire to accumulate even more technical debt.

~~~
ggm
I hate DOS as much as the next UNIX person but in filesystems it pays to be
nuanced. We need to be able to swap data across OS and read/write enabled FS
support for >4GB partitions with sensible names not 8.3 and with ACLS and even
being able to boot from them would be nice. I wouldn't choose to live in
exVFAT but I would welcome integration of support.

~~~
coretx
All those arguments are valid and where already somewhere around 2k. Today,
many more matter. Prominently the FS being aware of it being at flash storage
or magnetic etc. We surely should oppose artificially prolonging the *fat
shelf life.

Edit: @Guy claiming exFAT was developed for flash drives. Not sure if your
clever spindoktering is astroturfing or trolling. >_<

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nordsieck
> Prominently the FS being aware of it being at flash storage or magnetic etc.
> We surely should oppose artificially prolonging the _fat shelf life.

All of those are good things in isolation. However, the reality is,
Linux/BSD/etc. doesn't have the marketshare to push any filesystem cross
platform.

Any filesystem with the characteristics you want that goes cross platform will
start on MacOS (unlikely) or Windows (much, much more likely)_.

Until then, people need a way to accomplish tasks and exFat is the best we've
got today for cross platform flash storage.

* I suppose it's possible it could come from Android or iOS, although iOS is pretty unlikely since it's so hostile to the idea of filesystems. For this to happen, though, it would have to be a regular task to plug flash drives into phones. That is currently not the case and won't be the case in the near future.

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e40
Perhaps so that when WSL2 is available, they'll be able to mount all Windows
filesystems easier?

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asdefghyk
I believe, Its just part of Microsoft's plan for world domination and to
neutralize Linux and other competitors. They are fully in the embrace phase at
present. I'd question if it will have ALL the features on Linux that it does
on Windows...

~~~
MegaDeKay
The first paragraph of the article states the code is "Microsoft-approved,
largely Samsung-authored". The code is open source and missing features, if
any, could be added. Microsoft has explicitly endorsed its usage in the kernel
[0] and its architecture is fully documented [1]. What more do you want?

[0]
[https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat...](https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-
linux-kernel/)

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/win32/fileio/exfat-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/win32/fileio/exfat-specification)

