azmodean said:
As for filesystem, I'll probably be using ext2. All my systems are linux and all my drives are ext2 except the thumb drives I use for small data transfer, so being able to read the SD card on windows isn't an issue, which I think is the only reason to use fatXX. If there are better alternatives for use on SD cards I'd be glad to hear about it though.
With this open source driver for Windows, there's little reason to use FAT32 at all for SD cards you don't use anywhere but your Pandora/GP2X and home PC running Linux/Windows:
http://www.fs-driver.org/
In fact, when Open2X comes out for the GP2X any day now, you'd be wise to use EXT3 on your SD cards, it is much more reliable than FAT32.
Do you really want a journaled file system like ext3 on an sd card or is that a typo?
Yep, I meant EXT3. Your choice. Ext3 will write more often, Ext2 is fine (both with noatime option)
QUOTE
Access rights are not maintained. All users can access all the directories and files of an Ext2 volume. If a new file or directory is created, it inherits all the permissions, the GID and the UID from the directory where it has been created. There is one exception to this rule: a file (but not a directory) the driver has created always has cleared "x" permissions, it inherits the "r" and the "w" permissions only. See also section "What limitations arise from not maintaining access rights?".
The current version of the Ext2 file system driver does not maintain access rights. All users can access all the Ext2 volumes that a drive letter is created for. For example, if a drive letter has been created for an Ext2 volume, which is the root volume of a Linux installation, you can simply read and modify files such as /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. User names are readable and passwords of these users can be quite easily cracked and modified!
Therefore the current Ext2 file system driver does not fit for installations which require restrictive rights policies. It should be sufficient for your computer at home, which is used by one or a few users only. Furthermore, you should create drive letters for a root volume of a Linux installation only if you know exactly what you are doing.
just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should. Linux has 'user groups', and codes on the file system control what directory's can be read/written by which users. this driver essentially gives any user root privileges. this is bad because root can do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to the file system. including destroy your operating system. Becosue of these strict privileges its virtually impassable for Linux to get a virus. Unless you deliberative run it with sudo (super user do). now, say you get a bad viras while your root partition is mounted in windows, the viras is then free to do anything with the data on the partition.
by all mens mount your home partition if its absolutely nesoserry, but DO NOT mount your root partition with this driver.
) then mounting it will give the current user regular priveleges, ie: read/write. If you do have a virus, that virus can get and manipulate the data, regardless of whether you're on linux or windows.
