USB disc support for other file systems ?

[Mnyb]

Is there any plans to support any file system besides fat 32 for USB discs ?

The Touch is by nature a "linux" computer of some kind, does it not naturally support ext2 ext3 reisersf file systems ?

Is this available in packaged form for this platform somewhere or must one build this from source on the Touch itself invoking serious geek powers that I do not posses.

Hint: some linux head writes a wiki about it

With some hand-holding i can do things like building squeezeplay from svn or perl 5.8.8 on my server, but that takes god instructions.

What about NTFS quite common on large win formated usb drives ?

[lrossouw]

I've seen mention that NTFS may be scheduled for a future version. That would be good because you can't copy large files onto a FAT32 and I would probably use the same HD for non-music purposes.

[funkstar]

NTFS support is slated for 8.0.1

I actually don't know what other file systems will be supported natively. I don't know what the Touch uses internally for its own storeage/OS. But I would expect that all the usual Linux file systems will be supported, if not initially, then in time.

[JohnSwenson]

I plugged in a USB flash stick formatted with ext3 and it worked fine.

John S.

[andyg]

The biggest issue with officially supporting other filesystems is what happens if you pull the drive or the power without un-mounting it? Our thought is that NTFS is more fragile to this, and it unfortunately will likely be a common thing people will do that they may not do if using the drive with a computer. We obviously want to avoid that tech support call where someone loses an entire drive full of their only copy of music...

[pfarrell]

andyg wrote:
> We obviously want to avoid that tech support call where someone loses an entire drive full of their only copy of
> music...

I can see that having a really angry customer on the phone.... with no
way out.

I assume that a few tech support calls cost as much as the markup on the
units, so that has to be avoided. Keeping that 1-800 number is really
expensive.


--
Pat Farrell
http://www.pfarrell.com/

[autopilot]

The biggest issue with officially supporting other filesystems is what happens if you pull the drive or the power without un-mounting it? Our thought is that NTFS is more fragile to this, and it unfortunately will likely be a common thing people will do that they may not do if using the drive with a computer. We obviously want to avoid that tech support call where someone loses an entire drive full of their only copy of music...

Yes, but this is not unique to the Touch. Surley you could just add an unmount menu option and give people plenty of warning, when they plug it in, etc?

[pfarrell]

autopilot wrote:
> Yes, but this is not unique to the Touch. Surley you could just add an
> unmount menu option and give people plenty of warning, when they plug it
> in, etc?

Its unique to the Touch among the SlimDevices/Streaming Media division
products.


You don't really expect users to pay attention to warnings, do you?
Some huge percentage of users will simply pull the USB plug. Just as
they do for all the rest of the USB stuff they have.

--
Pat Farrell
http://www.pfarrell.com/

[Mnyb]

How are you supposed to handle disc's with the touch then ?

Does it have a real off meaning does it do a real shutdown or does just die ? Or does it have disc unmount in the menu.

Otherwise i see a real problem, you can not just pull out a fat 32 disc either ?

So how does the touch handle unmount of any disc ?

Interesting that it handles ext2/3 but do I need to ssh to it and do umount to be safe with that ?

[andyg]

The plan is definitely to have a warning appear every time a disk is connected and an obvious eject icon.