I agree that there are often times when you wish to share files between
DOS and Linux. But you can do this just as well by using the ordinary
FAT filesystem. Yes, you don't get a long name for it or unix-style
permissions, but you do get to control the name which DOS sees; which
is something you can't do with umsdos, i believe?
There's the issue of not sharing free space between Linux and DOS.
People are working on things like resize2fs which might alleviate some
of the problems.
There also exist tools for DOS (and many other OSes) that allow one to
access ext2 filesystems. I had a URL for a DOS one once, but I can't
find it now.
As to the backup, the ext2 partition exists as a file under DOS.
Any decent backup program will perform compression and perform the
backup in a reasonably effective manner. Admittedly, you can't extract
individual files from this form of backup either.
I guess UMSDOS does still have its purpose and this is a complementary
method. But it does what I need which is that it stops me from having to
write UADFS ;-) Seriously, I would like to see this go into the kernel
before 2.2. The question I am most asked at ARM Linux exhibitions is
`Can I install it without repartitioning', followed closely by `Is card
XYZ supported yet?'.
From: mnalis@public.srce.hr (Matija Nalis)
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 98 13:15 MET DST
Subject: Re: remount active filesystems (death of UMSDOS predicted)
Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>There's now no good reason to continue to support umsdos. Here's how to
>install on a system without repartitioning:
> * create a file on the native partition
> * set up a loop device on that file
>now continue the installation as normal with /dev/loop0 as your root
>partition. To boot, you need an initrd and linuxrc looks something
>like this:
Setting linux up without repartioniong is not the only purpose for UMSDOS
(although it is one of nicer things you can do). Sharing files that you can
access BOTH from DOS and from Linux is other one. Now, if all world was
running 'vfat' or NTFS, that point would be gone, but so would the whole
point of Linux also (since everyone would be running Win*). But there are
still many people refusing to run win*, but having to run DOS stuff around.
And they hate to waste free space on those DOS partitions. And they also
refuse to 'upgrade' their old, reliable FAT to 'VFAT stuff', which renders
not a few DOS utilities unusable.
Also, there is a point of being able to run certain backup devices only
under DOS, and wishing to backup Linux... etc, etc.
UMSDOS has its puropse...
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