How can I share files between Debian and Vista, both on same computer?
 

Hi there!

I am running Debian (on one partion) and Vista (in a different partion) of same disk (same dell xps m1330 notebook.

My question is quite simple:

Is there a practical way to transfer files from Vista to Debian and viceversa?.

Many thanks for your support.

Debian can read the NTFS file system directly (I'm not used to Vista, but I think it's still using NTFS?) but historically it's been a bit flakey. That normally puts me off as a corruption could bring down the whole NTFS partition.

When using a duel boot Debian/Windows machine I used to have an extra FAT32 partition for changing files between them. The partion can be mounted on both OSs.

However, if available a remote file systems that both can use, like Samba or simple FTP would be best. Assuming that's available to you.

There are at least two ways I can think of.

1. Create a partition on the hard drive and format it fat32. Both systems can read and write to fat32. Move your shared files to that partition.

2. Most USB sticks are formatted fat32. They are cheap enough. Buy one, plug it in, and pot the shared files there. You could even use a CD -R/W disk to exchange files.

It is possible to load ntfs-g3 driver in Debian. That would give you access from Deb to Vista. Windows in general is much more limited in the supported file systems. The only common one is fat32. ( solution 1 ).

Third method. Install vbox on Deb. Run Vista in Vbox. You can the use windoze file sharing between the two systems. I do this with Mandriva host, and XP guest. You need a fairly fast system with lots of ram to make it work well though. At lest 2 gig of ram, 3 would be better.

Hope this helps.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2read/

Will let you read ext file systems in winblows, and as others state you can read ntfs in Debian

Regards,
JKZfixme

Thanks to all you guys.
I will try reading NTFS from Debian, as seems to be the most elegant and practical solution.

http://ext2.yeah.net is another very useful addon for Windows. It will also allow you to mount your ext3 partitions and access them as normal via Windows Explorer.

ntfs-3g is working fine!. However, I do not know how can I configure an init file (or similar) to automaticall launch the "mount" command when starting the computer. Now I have to launch it from the terminal manually on every power up.

Cheers.

I'm not familiar with Debain, most distros had init scripts, and you can start a program there. Look for a rc.local file. On my system, the path is /etc/rc.d/rc.local I can add any program I need there. At the bottom I would add the same command that I run in a terminal.

Once the ntfs-g3 is loaded, then you can edit /etc/fstab and add an entry for mounting the partition. There should be information in 'man mount' to show how to set the fstab file up for a new partition. Basically you need a mount point. That is an empty directory. Then add the line. Once added, and ntfs-g3 is added to rc.local then it will be accessible after a boot.

First you have to have a mount point, assume you have that setup already.

Second add something like this to your /etc/fstab

of course you need to use your info. Just how to get your UUID I don't know but google should yield the method.

To get the uuid's that are assigned, the following command should work.

thanks to all you guys for your support:
Well, the command I have to launch is clear to me. However, when opening fstab for edition, the systems says it is a readonly file, insufficient privilegies.

Only the root user can edit fstab. You must become root, or run the editor using sudo.

The problem with that solution is you'll open a door into Linux from a system prone to viral attacks. Which you don't want to. I used to do that actually but I now prefer using ntfs-3G from Linux.

You can mount a partition read-only, you can as well set a small partition to share files, outside your main system (which you should be doing regardless if you dual-boot or not anyway).

Besides that, a viral attack could easily disintegrate your partition table and write some random bits into the partition trashing it completely without knowing anything about the fs inside that block device.

What I mean is that from a security point of view you gain very little from not using an ext2 partition from Windows, because windows viruses won't work under linux (so, infection is not really an issue), but they can virtually delete your info regardless if the partition is mounted or not. So it's all the same.

So, use whatever fs works for you to share your files. You could as well setup a network share if you have a spare computer, or use a pendrive, or store them into "the cloud" whatever that means for you... Bear in mind that fat32 is limited to a maximum 4gb minus 1 byte per file, which could be circumvented splitting the files with some tool (rar, split, 7zip, whatever else).