Is linux fat or ntfs

The FAT, Linux, and NTFS file systems

I heard that the NTFS file system is basically a b-tree. Is that true? What about the other file systems? What kind of trees are they? Also, how is FAT32 different from FAT16? What kind of tree are the FAT file systems using?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems You may want to narrow your search then, cause there is a few.

!? Ext2 has been outdated for some time in most uses (unless you count routers, switches and similar appliances). Ext3 is the old standard and is being now replaced by Ext4.

My guess is that far more people use ext3. It’s been out for a long time, and this point ext4 is probably more likely for new installs. Not to mention that power users use multiple file systems, like ext2 for /boot, ReiserFS for /var and ext4 for everything else.

4 Answers 4

FAT (FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32) do not use a tree of any kind. Two interesting data structures are used, in addition to a block of data describing the partition itself. Full details at the level required to write a compatible implementation in an embedded system are available from Microsoft and third parties. Wikipedia has a decent article as an alternative starting point that also includes a lot of the history of how it got the way it is.

Since the original question was about the use of trees, I’ll provide a quick summary of what little data structure is actually in a FAT file system. Refer to the above references for accurate details and for history.

The set of files in each directory is stored in a simple list, initially in the order the files were created. Deletion is done by marking an entry as deleted, so a subsequent file creation might re-use that slot. Each entry in the list is a fixed size struct, and is just large enough to hold the classic 8.3 file name along with the flag bits, size, dates, and the starting cluster number. Long file names (which also includes international character support) is done by using extra directory entry slots to hold the long name alongside the original 8.3 slot that holds all the rest of the file attributes.

Each file on the disk is stored in a sequence of clusters, where each cluster is a fixed number of adjacent disk blocks. Each directory (except the root directory of a disk) is just like a file, and can grow as needed by allocating additional clusters.

Clusters are managed by the (misnamed) File Allocation Table from which the file system gets its common name. This table is a packed array of slots, one for each cluster in the disk partition. The name FAT12 implies that each slot is 12 bits wide, FAT16 slots are 16 bits, and FAT32 slots are 32 bits. The slot stores code values for empty, last, and bad clusters, or the cluster number of the next cluster of the file. In this way, the actual content of a file is represented as a linked list of clusters called a chain.

Larger disks require wider FAT entries and/or larger allocation units. FAT12 is essentially only found on floppy disks where its upper bound of 4K clusters makes sense for media that was never much more than 1MB in size. FAT16 and FAT32 are both commonly found on thumb drives and flash cards. The choice of FAT size there depends partly on the intended application.

Access to the content of a particular file is straightforward. From its directory entry you learn its total size in bytes and its first cluster number. From the cluster number, you can immediately calculate the address of the first logical disk block. From the FAT indexed by cluster number, you find each allocated cluster in the chain assigned to that file.

Discovery of free space suitable for storage of a new file or extending an existing file is not as easy. The FAT file system simply marks free clusters with a code value. Finding one or more free clusters requires searching the FAT.

Locating the directory entry for a file is not fast either since the directories are not ordered, requiring a linear time search through the directory for the desired file. Note that long file names increase the search time by occupying multiple directory entries for each file with a long name.

FAT still has the advantage that it is simple enough to implement that it can be done in small microprocessors so that data interchange between even small embedded systems and PCs can be done in a cost effective way. I suspect that its quirks and oddities will be with us for a long time as a result.

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Creating FAT Filesystems in Linux

In short, steps to create USB drive on Linux are: delete all, create partition, set partition type, mark it as active and write changes to disk. After new partition is created, with mkfs command it’s needed to create FAT32 file system.

How do I create a FAT partition?

When creating a FAT32 partition, you need to delete the pre-existing partition and then create the FAT32 partition. If you don’t want to delete the data on the partition, you can convert the existing filesystem to FAT32 using a utility such as Partition Magic.

Can Linux format FAT32?

Format a Disk using FAT32 filesystems

In order to format a partition with an FAT32 filesystem, you need to use the “mkfs” command and specify the FAT32 filesystem. . Let’s see how you can format your disks using NTFS on Linux.

How do I create a Vfat file system in Linux?

Write the new partition info onto the disk with the w command, and exit fdisk. Make a vfat filesystem on the new partition by typing mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdc1 (assuming that /dev/sdc1 is the name of the new partition that you just created). It only takes a minute or two. Power down the disk or unplug it from the USB.

Is Linux FAT32 or NTFS?

Portability

File System	Windows XP	Ubuntu Linux
NTFS	Yes	Yes
FAT32	Yes	Yes
exFAT	Yes	Yes (with ExFAT packages)
HFS+	No	Yes

How do I create a Windows partition in Linux?

1. Boot a live session («Try Ubuntu» from the installation CD) Only unmounted partitions can be resized. .
2. Run GParted. Open the Dash and type GParted to run the graphical partitioner from the live session.
3. Select partition to shrink. .
4. Define size of the new partition. .
5. Apply changes.

Is exFAT the same as FAT32?

exFAT is a modern replacement for FAT32—and more devices and operating systems support it than NTFS—but it’s not nearly as widespread as FAT32.

How do I create a FAT32 partition?

Select your hard drive in the drives list, right-click on it, and select Format. Set the options as the following and then hit OK. Partition label – enter a name for your drive. File system – select FAT32.

Can I create a FAT32 partition on an NTFS drive?

In addition, you can also convert to FAT32 from a NTFS partition to achieve aim. This way is fast and convenient for you, and won’t cause any data loss. Please do this operation with its “Convert NTFS to FAT” feature.

How do I mount FAT32 on Linux?

Unmount the Windows partition; you should then be able to chmod the permissions of /mnt/Windows. You will need to set the appropriate Linux rwx permissions on the /mnt/fat folder and set the permissions for the FAT partition (as described below) in order to grant everyone write access.

What format does Linux use?

Table

File System	Max File Size	Notes
Fat32	4 GiB	Legacy
NTFS	2 TiB	(For Windows Compatibility) NTFS-3g is installed by default in Ubuntu, allowing Read/Write support
ext2	2 TiB	Legacy
ext3	2 TiB	Standard linux filesystem for many years. Best choice for super-standard installation.

Does Linux recognize NTFS?

Majority of current Linux distributions supports NTFS file system out of the box. To be more specific, support for NTFS file system is more feature of Linux kernel modules rather than Linux distributions.

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Can Ubuntu Linux be installed on FAT32 or NTFS?

Before I start, don’t lecture me on the fact that FAT32 is old and hasn’t been updated for nearly 20 years. Right now I have sorted that. I am trying to install Ubuntu Linux onto a 64GB flash drive and it wants me to format it to one of the EXT file systems. The problem is if I put the flash drive into a Windows PC, I can’t use it. I also can’t install the required software onto every Windows PC that I will use. When I tried to install it on FAT32 I got an error and there is no option for NTFS. Does anyone know how I could do this? Maybe a Windows based tool? Thanks in advance.

I have installed Linux on FAT32 in the past, but, because of the large number of small files, storage is very inefficient and occupies twice or more times the space you’d expect. I have been using the open source Ext2 driver in Windows to access my Ubuntu system on ext4. I use only read mode, but write mode is supported, though you would be advised to back up well before using, until you are confident. See ext2fsd.com

@William — I’ll look at doing so, but it’s a long time since I did it, so I’ll need to do quite a lot of work to validate the procedure, so it won’t come soon.

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Linux relies on a number of filesystem features that simply are not supported by FAT or NTFS — Unix-style ownership and permissions, symbolic links, etc. Thus, Linux can’t be installed to either FAT or NTFS. (It used to be possible to do this using a FAT driver that adds those features, but it was removed from the kernel years ago because nobody was maintaining it.)

If you need a USB flash drive that both boots Linux and can be accessed from Windows, then I second Zonder’s recommendation to create a FAT or NTFS data partition on the drive, along with the Linux partition(s). Note that you’ll need to put the FAT or NTFS partition first on the disk, because Windows treats USB flash drives as «superfloppies,» and will access only the first partition on the disk. Linux is not limited in this way, so you can put the Linux partition(s) after the shared-data partition. Also note that you can’t use FAT or NTFS as the Linux /home partition; if you go this route, you’ll need to mount the shared-data partition somewhere else in Linux.

> Also note that you can’t use FAT or NTFS as the Linux /home partition As I remember, I used monted /home to NTFS partion and hadn’t any problems. But I’m not sure. Why you recommend to avoid this?

The Linux umsdos filesystem type was used to mount FAT filesystems with full Unix/Linux filesystem features (long filenames, permissions, ownership, etc.). Support for it was dropped a long time ago, though — in the 3.0 or earlier kernel, IIRC. Neither FAT nor NTFS is suitable for use on /home because programs may require symbolic links, permissions, and other features there; and if your system has multiple users, these filesystems can’t handle the file owner features required.

@RodSmith NTFS has both shortcut(you could trick the OS into viewing them as a soft/hard link) and permissions usage what else is missing?

I just checked, and the read/write NTFS3g driver supports symbolic links, but not changing ownership or permissions. (Note that Windows uses very different ownership and permissions models from Linux, so although NTFS supports Windows ownership and permissions, this doesn’t translate easily to Linux.) The last I heard, there were some proposed/experimental ways to add this support, but they aren’t mainstream. Also, NTFS3g is a non-kernel driver, which makes it iffy at best for use on root ( / ).

@SergeyPonomarev Even without posixovl , NTFS supports everything Linux needs with its highly flexible «extended attributes» for files and directories (entries).

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