Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right now

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EmuandCo
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by EmuandCo »

We are talking about IFS drivers and their need of stuff like Cache and Memory Manager. That thing is nothing more than a shell extension, thats it.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by eersoy93 »

See for NTFS information: http://www.ntfs.com/
Monti
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by Monti »

Hello!

This is my first post on the ReactOS forum, so first I would like to say thank you very much for the ReactOS project. I hope it will be alive for many hundred years to come ;) I have been using, and have purchased every version of desktop Windows since 3.11, but with version 10 I stopped and said "no thanks, that's it".

To my question; Some clarity on which file system will be the main "system file system". Has there been any decision on if it will be NTFS or ext3? And if there has been a decision, what are the progress on the chosen one? Personally I don't care too much on which it is/will be. I can manage with either one.

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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by Konata »

Monti wrote:To my question; Some clarity on which file system will be the main "system file system". Has there been any decision on if it will be NTFS or ext3? And if there has been a decision, what are the progress on the chosen one? Personally I don't care too much on which it is/will be. I can manage with either one.
It's going to be NTFS; ReactOS aims for 100% Server 2003 SP2 compatibility, and doesn't plan on breaking that anywhere.
Of course, when it will fully adopt NTFS is a different story. Thankfully someone's working on it right now, but there's no guarantee it will allow the OS to boot from it (only read/write partitions).
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by Monti »

Konata wrote: It's going to be NTFS; ReactOS aims for 100% Server 2003 SP2 compatibility, and doesn't plan on breaking that anywhere.
Of course, when it will fully adopt NTFS is a different story. Thankfully someone's working on it right now, but there's no guarantee it will allow the OS to boot from it (only read/write partitions).
Thank you for your reply Konata. Appreciate it.

A final decision on which file system to use sounds reassuring. That's good. Anyhow, the ability to read/write partitions is a valuable place to start. Having the opportunity to use some larger than 32GB partitions would give me the opportunity for some good software testing.

Do you know if it is possible to follow the progress of NTFS somewhere?

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sdever
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by sdever »

Hello,

There is currently a GSoC project about adding write support, and weekly progress is described in the ReactOS developer blogs here (latest edition :D).

Anyways, this topic is somewhat outdated now we have ReiserFS and btrfs drivers inside ReactOS :D

Edit: better link here :) https://reactos.org/blog/49142
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by dsp8195 »

sdever, weren't those drivers Read-Only? ROS can't even boot from them yet, not to mention create the new partitions.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by erkinalp »

there's no guarantee it will allow the OS to boot from it
There is no requirement that ReactOS will boot from all media Windows boots, either. They need to be interoperable at least in Windows to ReactOS way.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by Z98 »

There actually as yet is no decision on what would be the "main" filesystem. As far as I'm aware of, it hasn't even really been thought about internally by the team. NTFS often gets brought up because it's the one that thematically makes sense since it's what NT uses, but officially there is no actual answer.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by EmuandCo »

In ROS' current state FAT is still fine, but yes there's no decision yet in future main FS cases.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by Konata »

Oh, well, sorry for speaking for the project out of line, then. I just assumed since the project is so strict about compatibility in so many other fields. I sure hope NTFS ends up as the default filesystem, it wouldn't feel the same otherwise.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by erkinalp »

I would not name any particular FS yet at least two simple FSs and two complex FSs in terms of complexity of algorithms of data structures.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by knowmad »

It's all well and good that ReactOS supports alternative file systems. However if we want anyone who uses Windows as their primary OS to even think about trying ReactOS out I'm sure if NTFS write support is implimented, many would attempt to do so. Also, bear in mind that amongst the potential tryers and experimenters a certain portion of them will be programmers who might even help out with development.
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Re: Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right

Post by hater »

For FFS see https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-11040
For BTR FS see https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-10892
For Reiser FS see https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-11005

For why it ROS won't install - there are several issues that are in play currently.
1. Boot sector should be written for the FS that is installed that is able to read the specific FS. Currently there are boot sectors for FAT, NTFS (not sure if it is working properly as there is no write support to be able to install on NTFS), EXTx (I'm playing with that, but there are some other issues still)
2. Formatting tools and function to be able to format the FS. Currently there is formatting again for FAT, NTFS, EXTx. But it is no easy task to port btrfs, reiser or ffs formatting tools.
3. Freeldr/Setupldr should be able to natively read those FS again and it is double work as it can't use drivers, but we have to have read at least (maybe write for updates) to be able to boot and load drivers.
4. Some of these drivers first must be made RW before being able to install on them and not all of them are.

So long story short drivers are not nearly enough to enable installation on specific type of FS, but the good news is you can read (on some write) your files natively from them.
Happy hacking
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