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Strange Ubuntu/Vista Compatibility Bug, Solved

Posted by timothy on from the love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together dept.

Walter Vos writes "Since I've been running Vista and Ubuntu in dual boot with a shared FAT32 partition for my personal folders, I've been seeing some strange compatibility issues between these two operating systems. Somehow Vista locks the folders on the FAT32 partition that are used for folders like Documents, Downloads, etc. A blogpost I wrote gives a detailed description of the problem and a fix for it."

40 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. FAT32 by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    NTFS-3G works pretty well. I'm not sure FAT32 is really necessary any more.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:FAT32 by duckInferno · · Score: 5, Funny

      Stay away from FATMAN239. It nuked my hard drive.

      --
      Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
    2. Re:FAT32 by 4D6963 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ntfs-3g worked pretty well for me, except for I/O intensive applications. aMule with all its I/O on a NTFS partition of VMware with all the virtual machine's file on a NTFS partition as well were pretty slow. Actually I think VMware was so slow that 99% of the CPU was actually taken up by ntfs-3g, meaning VMware was crawling.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
    3. Re:FAT32 by niteice · · Score: 5, Informative

      There's a couple of ext3 drivers for Windows (one open-source, one not) that also work pretty well, so you can go both ways.

      --
      ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
    4. Re:FAT32 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As far as I know they're only ext2 drivers. Of coarse, you can usually mount ext3 as ext2 without any issues.

    5. Re:FAT32 by CheshireFerk-o · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://www.diskinternals.com/ they have a freeware ext2/ext3 proggy called 'linux reader' ive had it installed for quite a few months. plays my ext3 mp3storage in winamp just fine.

    6. Re:FAT32 by MindlessAutomata · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I kept all my mp3s on an NTFS partition, and it made amarok incredibly slow for searching through files and even listing them when I wanted to expand a tree. It, of course, also was using up a ton of cpu power. Other intensive programs were causing me other problems, mostly more cpu usage quirks.

      NTFS-3g is not perfect and I'd recommend steering clear of relying on NTFS on linux for heavy or day-today usage. I haven't used ubuntu on windows but I can imagine it would give a negative impression due to performance issues. For pulling off the occasion file off another partition, though, it works well.

      When I moved all my mp3s to an ext3 partition, all the problems with amarok went away instantly.

    7. Re:FAT32 by Ruie · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think he would have the same problem with a ntfs drive.

      The issue is that his Linux user setup and Windows user setup are different.
      So when he mounts the partition all files are owned by root (as shown on the screen), and some files have public permissions turned off - a reasonable thing.

      Thus what he needs to do is specify the owner of the files using uid=value
      option in /etc/fstab (uid value can be found via "getent passwd", it is numeric).

      For more info read "man mount" carefully.

    8. Re:FAT32 by kiddygrinder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ext2 works pretty well for ext3 drives so they don't care enough to do it. Anyone who does care about ext3 that much i'd guess probably doesn't care that much about windows.

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    9. Re:FAT32 by coolsnowmen · · Score: 3, Informative

      I kept all my mp3s on an NTFS partition, and it made amarok incredibly slow for searching through files and even listing them when I wanted to expand a tree. It, of course, also was using up a ton of cpu power. Other intensive programs were causing me other problems, mostly more cpu usage quirks.

      I found the default database backend slow, so switching to a better DB could be the solution. Even if your files are on NTFS, try having a postgres DB backend(on your fs of choice) and it should speed up your library searching.

    10. Re:FAT32 by macshit · · Score: 2, Informative

      NTFS-3G works pretty well. I'm not sure FAT32 is really necessary any more.

      FAT may suck, but it's the only thing understood by a lot of embedded software like BIOSes, device firmware, etc...

      Indeed, for that reason it seems like FAT may very well be more useful than NTFS. FAT will probably stay around for quite a while as a "braindead, but simple and widespread" exchange format, but the only excuse for NTFS is windows.

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    11. Re:FAT32 by Daengbo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oddly enough, there's the exact corollary in Linux. Mounting NTFS filesystems often fails because they weren't unmounted properly in Windows. The solution is ... to boot into Windows and mount the filesystem.

      --
      Put identity in the browser.
    12. Re:FAT32 by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wow, google is good. I just did a search to find out exactly what fatman239 is, and the only thing that came up in the results was your post.

      --
      Qxe4
    13. Re:FAT32 by FlyByPC · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_man

      --
      Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
    14. Re:FAT32 by Mattsson · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've had NTFS-G3 totally destroy two NTFS partitions with the Vista version of NTFS 3.1
      This seem to differ a bit from the XP version of NTFS 3.1

      --
      /.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
    15. Re:FAT32 by RupW · · Score: 2, Insightful

      These are the file attributes FAT knows:
      - Read
      - Write
      - System

      No, it's

      • r - read only
      • a - archive (set when the file is modified, i.e. can use as a simple 'needs backup' flag)
      • s - system
      • h - hidden
  2. Mod parent down - it's not true! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It actually cannot suck dick. That's my main issue with it. I downloaded and installed Ubuntu with the full expectation of some dick sucking and it never came to pass. What the fuck is that about? You, sir, are a liar and a fraud.

    1. Re:Mod parent down - it's not true! by teh+moges · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ubuntu can easily handle a FAT16, but has trouble handling a FAT32. It needs more practice I suppose.

    2. Re:Mod parent down - it's not true! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, at least it doesn't fuck you in the ass like Vista does.

    3. Re:Mod parent down - it's not true! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
      Vista fucks you in the ass, and Ubuntu fails to suck your dick...

      Good thing I stick to good ol' DOS, the only OS that won't sexually abuse you, it seems.

    4. Re:Mod parent down - it's not true! by Alsee · · Score: 2, Funny

      I've gotten used to putting up with all sorts of nasty behavior from Windows over the years, and I guess I could eventually reluctantly learn to get used to the ass fucking.... but I had to dump Vista when it insisted on shitting in my mouth after each ass fucking.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  3. Damn by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    For a moment there I thought somebody had fixed Ubuntu bug one.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  4. I suspsect that... by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Insightful

    if the owner/group permissions were set properly in fstab an easier solution would prevail

  5. Linux newbie finds FAT32 file perms don't work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... gets page linked from slashdot.

    Well, at least I adblock.

  6. Just Delete The Egomaniac. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hmm, I'm having a problem with permissions between Vista and Ubuntu. What should I do?

    Adopt a philosophy of ideological inflexibility, intolerance, ignorance, immaturity, and narcissism?

    ...or...

    Run a shell script or two?

    Decisions, decisions...

  7. not news by spandex_panda · · Score: 2, Informative

    user discovers chmod ... blogs about it ... boooooring.

    --
    like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
  8. Re:you are hollow, by grantek · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's lame because games should work under linux. It's not necessarily you being lame, it's either game developers being lame by not porting their games, Windows being lame that it's hard for the Wine crew to implement it with the exactness needed for games, or both, if the lame games are using bits of Windows that are lame when stuff like OpenGL could help.

    It's lame that people feel like they're being held hostage by an operating system that they don't otherwise want, and it's lame that MS is making money off that. If you actually want Windows for one reason or another, then it's not lame at all.

  9. oh my god. by nawcom · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Effectiveness of the Ubuntu Forums

    (The link this person gives in his blog post)

    I swear to christ, reading that page made me want to kill a kitten.

  10. Re:Not a vista bug by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not a bug, it's old knowledge getting flushed out of the general awareness of the public. FAT has a read-only bit and Linux knows about it, it's in there along with the system and hidden file bits:

    #define ATTR_RO 1 /* read-only */

    (linux/msdos_fs.h)

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  11. Re:Linux newbie finds FAT32 file perms don't work. by jamie · · Score: 5, Funny

    either timothy never used a Linux distro and thinks this is newsworthy, or this is the slowest news day ever

    Timothy was last seen putting Ubuntu on an XO. He's been using Linux at least since I met him in 1999.

    It's August, every day is a slow news day :)

  12. IFS Kit; Vista 64 Test Mode by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    What keeps people from implementing ext3 support for Windows? The Linux source code is obviously available, so are Windows ext2 drivers reimplementations that aren't using existing code? Or is there some deeper problem?

    For a while, Microsoft once charged roughly $1,000 for the "IFS Kit" used to develop installable file system drivers. To work around this, programs such as "Explore2fs" had to act like WinRAR and 7-Zip, where you don't really mount a partition but you can still drag files in and out. (The price appears to have dropped since then.) For another thing, 64-bit versions of Windows Vista put an annoying "Test Mode" banner in all four corners of the desktop if the user installs a device driver that hasn't been signed by a publisher who pays an annual fee of at least $200 to a commercial certificate authority trusted by Microsoft.

    1. Re:IFS Kit; Vista 64 Test Mode by ozphx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At least $200! Thats almost two developer hours of money!

      Pretty certain you can chuck whatever cert you want in the trusted root store / disable this behaviour.

      --
      3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
    2. Re:IFS Kit; Vista 64 Test Mode by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

      Do you have a source for [Test Mode in Windows Vista 64-bit], or did I get lucky? I would love to get a screenshot of it and set it as my co-worker's wallpaper.

      My source is Kernel-Mode Code Signing Walkthrough.

    3. Re:IFS Kit; Vista 64 Test Mode by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At least $200! Thats almost two developer hours of money!

      In what city of what state/province of what country?

  13. Lack of Free (or even shared-source) drivers by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not necessarily you being lame, it's either game developers being lame by not porting their games

    Up until very recently, it was also video card manufacturers being lame by not making OpenGL drivers for Linux that the community can help debug. But ATI, one of the two makers of chipsets for video cards,[1] plans to stop being lame. And some people would claim that it's distribution maintainers being lame by not providing more thorough binary compatibility across multiple families of GNU/Linux distributions. ("What's an LSB again?")

    [1] Intel GMA is not available on a card.

  14. Re:Not a vista bug by greg1104 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This started in XP actually. The problem is that Microsoft sets the read-only attribute on the special folders that get custom views. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549 for information about the root cause of the problem reported on this blog. Fixing it on the Windows side requires one to go all old-school and use attrib; cracked me up.

  15. Re:Linux newbie finds FAT32 file perms don't work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You obviously never really did fit in here. I mean, a true slashdotter would have titled his post "Last post!"

  16. Re:As my grandmother used to say by Your.Master · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nor has she ever gone outside in her life.

  17. Re:As my grandmother used to say by SeekerDarksteel · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let's just make it red, blue, AND green should never been seen.

    Hey, did it just get awfully dark in here?

    --
    The laws of probability forbid it!
  18. Re: Ubuntu and NTFS by szaka · · Score: 4, Informative
    NTFS-3G changes rapidly and historically Ubuntu included an old, lower performing version of the NTFS-3G driver. However the one in Ubuntu 8.04 should be ok.

    Amarok has a documented performance issue with NTFS-3G: http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#dd

    The NTFS-3G web site has many tips what could be the problem for high CPU usage: http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#cpu100

    Sometimes NTFS defragmentation makes a magic.

    The focus of the NTFS-3G development is reliability and functionality over performance. The performance optimizations started only recently and the current development versions perform close or sometimes surprisingly even better than ext3.