[SLAX] How To Refine a NTFS-3g Installation

mr-roboto · 01-23-2007, 05:54 PM

This weekend, I built new modules for FUSE 2.61 and NTFS-3g-20070118 for Slax. They work, but there's a wrinkle. I can't mount NTFS partitions as R/W from KDE's KONQUEROR. KONQUEROR's mount helper seems to skip past /etc/fstab and apparently uses the obsolete NTFS R/O kernel support (yes, I explicitly built the FUSE kernel module).

When I mount w/ the MOUNT cmd, this is what goes into the System log:

Code:

Jan 23 14:59:02 (none) ntfs-3g[26192]: Version 0.20070118-BETA
Jan 23 14:59:02 (none) ntfs-3g[26192]: Mounted /dev/hda1 (Read-Write, label "WINXP-NTFS", NTFS 3.1)
Jan 23 14:59:02 (none) ntfs-3g[26192]: Options: noatime,rw,users,silent,allow_other,fsname=/dev/hda1,blkdev,blksize=4096

If I mount via KONQUEROR, this is what shows up:

Code:

Jan 23 14:42:05 (none) kernel: NTFS volume version 3.1.

I went so far as to test a shell-script wrapper for the Mount cmd on KONQUEROR's service (context) menu. No joy. I could generate and issue the desired MOUNT cmd, but when I took KNOQUEROR's mount helper out of the loop (naturally) KONQUEROR didn't know the partition had been mounted. Not even after restarting it.

I thought about regen'g the NTFS kernel module, not that it would fix the problem, but something's wrong w/ the Slax kernel sources, so no new NTFS.KO.

One final bit: I got started on this crusade bec of KNOPPIX 5.11. That was my 1st distro w/ the new R/W support. Anyway, while trying to gen some new ideas, I booted my KNOPPIX disc and noticed that it launches a kind of service process for each MOUNTed NTFS partition, regardlesss of whether it was explicitly MOUNTed from the cmd-line or thru KONQUEROR ! So perfect and elegant. I bet they simply grafted the solution onto the working system, w/o re-engineering anything.

I'm just about out of ideas, so if someone has fresh brain cells to spare, I'd apreciate....

PTrenholme · 01-24-2007, 10:57 AM

Any reason not to put the mount in /etc/fstab?

Code:

$ cat /etc/fstab | grep ntfs
/dev/hda1               /mnt/WinXP/c            ntfs-3g rw,uid=root,gid=disk 1 0

Of course, I'm on a Fedora system, but fstab is a fairly standard way to mount filesystems, eh?

Oh, if your NTFS disk isn't always available, you could use automount to get it mounted when needed and available.

mr-roboto · 01-24-2007, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTrenholme

Any reason not to put the mount in /etc/fstab?

Code:

$ cat /etc/fstab | grep ntfs
/dev/hda1               /mnt/WinXP/c            ntfs-3g rw,uid=root,gid=disk 1 0

Of course, I'm on a Fedora system, but fstab is a fairly standard way to mount filesystems, eh?

Oh, if your NTFS disk isn't always available, you could use automount to get it mounted when needed and available.

Thanx for the reply, but the /etc/fstab is setup just as you suggest (allowing for the diff mount point.) By default, SLAX does an automount at init time and writes fstab accordingly. But for this (ie. NTFS), I'm not comfortable w/ automount. Typically, I only mount my partitons when I need 'em to save stuf permanently (I'm totally into the live CD thing.)

Maybe I'm being anal about this, but I'd like to make this module as close to perfect as I can....

mr-roboto · 02-09-2007, 12:31 PM

Turns out I had to recompile the kernel, in order to disable the NTFS kernel driver. Was convinced there was some other way, in fact I actually saw indications of same, but apparently not for block devices. Regardless, I have the system I always wanted, w/ full NTFS-3g R/W support....