Die! NTFS.

[kirk]

As much as we might want NTFS to die, the reality is that nearly every computer sold has NTFS. If you want a lot of people to try Puppy, some support of NTFS is needed. I was happy with Puppy1.x.x support of NTFS, sure full R/W would be nice, but with read only support you didn't have worry about your Windows install and that's a comfort to people just trying out Puppy.

[marksouth2000]

I wish I understood why some Linux enthusiasts get so angry about Microsoft.

Perhaps it's something to do with the way Microsoft appears to throw funds into preventing people from using Linux, like giving money to SCO so they can carry on attempting to charge us each a US$700 fee for using Linux? Could that be a possibility?

There are lots of big software companies. Few have put the same level of effort into attempting into torpedoing our freedom to use software that they can't charge us for.

Is it fair, if I leave Microsoft alone, that they should be able to infringe my freedoms to use software which has nothing to do with them?

I don't expect answers, you should consider these questions rhetorical. But making some fair-minded statements about how Windows and Linux are just different tools doesn't even begin to show that one has taken the time to understand the basic issue.

[Waikiki Websurfer]

Hey, I still remember using MSX-DOS; Any chance we could include write support for it, or the CP/M filesystem while we're at it?

[Sit Heel Speak]

I was speaking tongue-in-cheek, as someone who has suffered from DOS and Windows since the PC XT era. And I'm sure Flash was too.

At

http://dfarq.homeip.net/article/article/935

(note: it's a dynamic-IP site, so you must flush your DNS cache if you revisit it)

there is a well-written explanation, by Dave Farquhar, titled

"Why I dislike Microsoft." It echoes my feelings, mildly.

[Flash]

I wish I understood why some Linux enthusiasts get so angry about Microsoft.

Perhaps it's something to do with the way Microsoft appears to throw funds into preventing people from using Linux, like giving money to SCO so they can carry on attempting to charge us each a US$700 fee for using Linux? Could that be a possibility?

Is it fair, if I leave Microsoft alone, that they should be able to infringe my freedoms to use software which has nothing to do with them?

I don't expect answers, you should consider these questions rhetorical. But making some fair-minded statements about how Windows and Linux are just different tools doesn't even begin to show that one has taken the time to understand the basic issue.

Maybe it's you who doesn't understand the basic issue. As Microsoft sees it, your use of non-Microsoftware does have something to do with them. The basic issue is that Microsoft sees Linux as perhaps the only credible threat to Windows' dominance. It is not unreasonable - unacceptable, but not unreasonable - for Microsoft to attempt to protect its market. The genius of the GPL is that Microsoft has not so far found a way to defeat it. Microsoft knows it would be laughed out of court if it attempted to prevent people from giving away software they had created.

Note that this is not a condemnation of Microsoftware, but of Microsoft's business practices.

[nate]

maybe.. the problem with NTFS lies not with puppy, but with windows.

Seeing puppy can read/write only ext3, and windows only ntfs..

Maybe anybody with decent Windows API programming could create an app that will read pup_save files, and allow export to Windows. Maybe this could include write as well? Maybe it would use an existing API for ext3->NTFS??

Just my 2 cents.

[GuestToo]

Puppy can read/write to ext2, ext3, reiserfs, fat16, fat32 and probably other file systems (xfs?) ... it can read from ntfs file systems

an app that will read pup_save files, and allow export to Windows

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

[Sage]

NTFS is a big problem. My most valued guru opinions advise that it is also technically unsound (although that does not necessarily manifest itself to regular users). It is proprietary - closed, no API access or information. In theory, you can only do with it what WG intends - no wonder Barry feels like he is beating his head against a brick wall; he is.
After the successful USDoJ judgement, the world had hoped that a criminalised M$ would have adopted some contrition and a more enlightened attitude in its business practices as well improving its software. The EU, which is a larger conglomerate than the USA with a bigger market pull, makes really threatening noises but is unlikely to follow through.
marksouth2000 makes some important points. This thing has become political - lots of folk, including many in this Forum may not like confronting political issues. It requires radical inter and intra-national education and awareness - and action. One US senator suggested that an OS was too important to the nation (he should've said world) to be under the control of a single commercial operator. He was quickly drowned out by the clamour of those taking the M$ shilling.
A massive educational exercise is required to bring the excesses of this monster to the attention of an unwitting world. Regular PC users tend to be blissfully unaware of the deeper issues (at least till BSOD) - why should they be? Clever marketing people have managed to get this ubiquitous instrument of universal communication treated as just another piece of eletrical hardware - go to the store, buy one, when it stops working, buy another, don't worry about what's inside and how it works. This has to change. Otherwise, we are all sleepwalking to oblivion like the proverbial lemmings.
The behaviour of M$ should concern us all. Make no mistake, Vista will be a threat to the free world, not something we should eagerly await. In the short term, we need to redouble our efforts to persuade others to switch OS lest we be accused of preaching to the converted. This is an issue worth crusading about. Let's not underestimate the massive contribution Barry is making towards this goal. Incidentally, RedFlag Linux does incorporate the English language!! Desperate remedies for desperate situations - perhaps those excellent coders in Persia could be invited to reverse engineer and publish the entire XP code?! Who knows what they'd find in there - can o' worms, no doubt.
And we haven't even started on DRM and all the other restrictive practices of Hollyweird, the RIAA, and co.

[sunburnt]

Yep; I've NEVER used NTFS, & I advise everyone not to also, Fat32 sucks... but it's reliable & Linux supported.
Accordingly I'll never use WinBlows XP (eXtra Propriatary), I can't stand the interface anyway.

Barry; give up on NTFS & make a utility that'll resize a HD, & add a new FAT32 or EXT2 partition of given size.
A quick easy fix for anyone with nonsupported partition HDs... with 120GB the std. HD size, what's a few gig?

[Sage]

sunnie - you're singing my song, again! (Shouldn't you be in the land of nod over there in Arizona?!). Well, almost my song. W98 and FAT32 could hardly be called 'reliable'. It can't do file handling nor memory handling properly - everyone knows that. The distinction is more subtle. As you say, they are kinda Linux compatible. The great benefit (??) of sticking with W98, which is also one its many downfalls, is that you have always got DOS available to fix the interminable flaws and damage conferred by its awful coding. Or just to recover valuable files before yet another fdisk....

[pythoncoder]

Perhaps it's something to do with the way Microsoft appears to throw funds into preventing people from using Linux, like giving money to SCO so they can carry on attempting to charge us each a US$700 fee for using Linux? Could that be a possibility?
...
But making some fair-minded statements about how Windows and Linux are just different tools doesn't even begin to show that one has taken the time to understand the basic issue.

In the long run Bill Gates may be doing Linux a great favour. Let's say he finds some code that's been "borrowed" from Microsoft. How long will it take the open source community to rewrite it under clean room conditions? This is really just a re-run of IBM's efforts to lock down the BIOS in the early 80's. It didn't get them very far.

At the end of the day Linux will be absolutely and unimpeachably legal. If Microsoft can't prove it to be illegal after spending all that money, who else would even consider taking the issue to court?

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't necessarily mean they are brainless.

Pete

[marksouth2000]

In the long run Bill Gates may be doing Linux a great favour. Let's say he finds some code that's been "borrowed" from Microsoft. How long will it take the open source community to rewrite it under clean room conditions? This is really just a re-run of IBM's efforts to lock down the BIOS in the early 80's. It didn't get them very far.

At the end of the day Linux will be absolutely and unimpeachably legal. If Microsoft can't prove it to be illegal after spending all that money, who else would even consider taking the issue to court?

It's a nice thought. However, a lot of the present state of affairs is just down to luck. If IBM hadn't decided, for reasons of their own, to support Linux in a BIG way, they wouldn't be fighting the SCO case now. And you and I would probably be paying US$700 licence fees for each copy of Linux that we use.

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't necessarily mean they are brainless.

Nowhere in what I wrote will anyone find even the slightest implication that I called anyone brainless.

[Sit Heel Speak]

Of course, global corporatism might still manage to strangle Linux, by locking it out of indispensible applications through finagling lockdown control of the transmission channels and how they may be used; e.g. the article "Microsoft patents watching TV and chatting at the same time" at

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060426-6682.html

...Are you committing a patent infringement, then, if you watch a program using an Open Source TV viewer and card, and surf to the show's website using Firefox, and then xchat on the show's proprietary chatroom with fellow watchers simultaneously?

A ridiculous patent, in my opinion, since it so clearly makes claims on obvious prior art. But then, Jeff Bezos tried it and got away with it with his patent on one-click e-shopping, and that opened the floodgates. Patent judges are often both ignorant and persuadable, not to mention bribeable. And Microsoft has much more money to throw at legal suits and judges and Congresscritters than the EFF does. In fact the University of Washington Law School nowadays is practically a fully subsidized arm of Microsoft Corporation.