DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Fwd: OT

Sat May 3 08:28:56 CDT 2008

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the info.  I wasn't aware of the permissions issue with
FAT32, or I'd've gone that way.

I'll do a little more research, first.

Best,
Jeff

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 12:38 PM,  <ed at okerson.com> wrote:
> Hey Jeff,
>
>
>  > I'd like to configure my PC to dual-boot with either Ubuntu Linux or
>  > Windows.  I set a separate partition on the primary drive before I
>  > installed Windows XP.
>  >
>  > I've done this before, with both installs on the same hard drive.  (I
>  > also did it, years ago, in a flakey way that involved two identical
>  > hard drives).
>  >
>  > The way I'd like to do it this time around is to have Windows and
>  > Ubuntu on the boot hard drive, then have all of my data on a separate
>  > hard drive.  My thinking is that each operating system will be able to
>  > access the other hard drive.
>  >
>  > I have the second hard drive formatted NTFS presently.  I don't know
>  > how stable Ubuntu is with NTFS.
>  >
>  > My questions are:
>  >
>  > 1. Does my plan make any sense?
>
>  If it makes sense to you.  I genereally don't advocate dual boot systems,
>  but I also don't advocate the use of Windows at all, so take that with a
>  grain of salt.  Dual boot systems are always more troublesome than single
>  OS machines.
>
>
>  > and
>  >
>  > 2. Would FAT32 formatting be better for a drive that will be
>  > read/written by Windows and Linux?
>
>  Historically, the FAT32 support in Linux has been much better and more
>  complete than NTFS, but according to http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php:
>
>  "[2007-09-29 00:55] The long awaited 2.0.0 release is finally here!
>  Highlights are that ntfsmount sports full read/write support, libntfs can
>  read encrypted files and ntfsresize as well as all other tools support
>  Windows Vista. Upgrade is strongly recommended."
>
>  So it might be worth trying now.  FAT32 always had the issues of not
>  supporting Unix file permissions, so generally filesystems like ext3 were
>  better for use on Linux.  Native filesystems like ext3 also provide other
>  features like journalling that Windows/DOS filesystems don't, so they are
>  more robust.  An alternative might be to install Ubuntu on the box and run
>  windows in VMware, or use Wine:
>
>  http://www.winehq.org/
>
>  That way you don't have to reboot to use Windows apps.  Another
>  alternative is to install Windows, and then install coLinux:
>
>  http://www.colinux.org/
>
>  Both of these alternatives eliminate messing with bootloaders, etc. but
>  have their own issues.
>
>  Ed Okerson
>
>
>
>
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