[ros-dev] Security policy for FAT partition driver?

[Michael B. Trausch]

Mike Nordell wrote:
>
> I have intentionally stayed out of this discussion, since it seems it's much
> about personal preferences and less about what I believe initially likely
> matters more for ROS - a way for the users coming to ROS to continue to use
> their existing data.
> 
> I believe that for this argument to be constructive, first it has to be
> decided what users are most important, or even likely, to be able to see the
> priority of FS implementations:
> - New users that have no previous data that matters to them.
> - Users migrating from Windows, currently using NTFS.
> - Users migrating from unix-like operating systems.
> 

Many groups have tried to implement full NTFS functionality over the
years.  We have managed a point where there is a free NTFS driver that
can read NTFS/XP partitions, and can write to them, provided that the
following cases are true:

	- Nothing "new" is created (folders, files)
	- Existing files can be written to, but they must be exactly
	  overwritten; you can not truncate or expand the file.

When the system is unmounted, as I understand it, it's marked 'dirty' so
that the next time you boot into it, Autochk will take a look at it
before booting.  Except that Autochk doesn't work on any system that
I've worked on, so I had to create a BartPE disc to check the systems
occasionally.  Personally, I've never seen that driver wipe away a
system, but if you were going to start with something, I suppose I'd try
to start with that one.

The whole point, however, is that people have tried this and come and
gone in the past, and it seems terribly daunting.  Is it something that
can really be done before a major stable version?  If users want to
convert their data, can't we build a disc for them that will do that,
and if so wouldn't it be smart to move their data to a partition type
first, and then install ROS on that partition with the data?  It won't
necessarily be a one-way-street, as there *are* ways to go back and
forth, even if they aren't "pretty".

OTOH, would it be feasible to maybe start with the driver that's been
written for Linux?  How hard would a Linux driver port to Win32?
(Something I wouldn't know; I don't work that low-level with either of
them...)

	- Mike

-- 
Michael B. Trausch                               <fd0man at gmail.com>
Website: http://fd0man.chadeux.net/     Jabber: mtrausch at jabber.com
Phone: +1-(678)-522-7934              FAX (US Only): 1-866-806-4647
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