change fat32 to ntfs

[duns]

I'd like to change the filesystem of my pockebook from fat32 to ntfs.
Do you think that it's possible (without danger, I mean)?

And how I should do?
1) copy the whole (visible) content of the (mass storage of the) pocketbook from device to pc (linux)
2) transform the filesystem, with a partition manager
3) re-copy the content from pc to device.

But I'm afraid to do something wrong...

What about my project?

[Keimix]

Why would You do that?

Nonetheless, I doubt that Pocketbook Firmware can handle NTFS, at least my PB 623 (Touch Lux 3) just can handle vfat, ext2, ext3.



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[rkomar]

I agree with @Keimix. PocketBook ereaders run linux, not windows, so it's not likely you can use NTFS with it. As a test, you could try using an SD card that has a NTFS filesystem on it. If that doesn't work, don't bother trying to change the internal filesystem.

[lumpynose]

See this thread:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=321530

When portable mp3 players took off several years ago I remember reading an article about how the makers of them were caught off guard when they were informed by Microsoft that they had to pay royalties or something because they were using the FAT/FAT32 filesystem. But that was before people started embedding Linux so I have no idea how that aspect plays out. If they are still paying royalties I'd guess that they'd have to pay higher royalties for NTFS, so they'd see no gain for supporting it.

[duns]

Originally Posted by Keimix

Why would You do that?

Nonetheless, I doubt that Pocketbook Firmware can handle NTFS, at least my PB 623 (Touch Lux 3) just can handle vfat, ext2, ext3.

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The reason is to handle symlinks. Sure, ext4 (/ext3) would be even better.
Could I transform fat32 to ext3 (/ext4)?

@rkomar It seems to me that I cannot add a scard to my pocketbook, but I'm not sure.

Thank you!

[rkomar]

Edit: I wrote some explanation about symlinks in fat32 on the device, but it was wrong. You can create them on the device in a shell, but the OS doesn't treat them as soft links. In fact, it doesn't know what to do with them (it can't read symlinks to files or list the contents of symlinks to directories).

What model of PocketBook device do you have that doesn't have an SD card slot in it?

[Renate]

The main reason that ereaders have anything to do with FAT is because of UMS, USB Mass Storage.
This is the system that allows you to plug your ereader into a desktop and see the ereader as a removable disk.

ADE, Adobe Digital Editions expects your device to use UMS.

If you sideload everything using ADB or MTP you might not need UMS.
If you don't use UMS you can use any file system that is supported by your ereader for your content.
You can also get rid of vold, the volume daemon.
If you switch file systems you may have to modify fstab.

My $0.02: UMS, vold, FAT, timestamps in local time all stink.

[duns]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Edit: I wrote some explanation about symlinks in fat32 on the device, but it was wrong. You can create them on the device in a shell, but the OS doesn't treat them as soft links. In fact, it doesn't know what to do with them (it can't read symlinks to files or list the contents of symlinks to directories).

What model of PocketBook device do you have that doesn't have an SD card slot in it?

I was wrong: I have a (possible) SD card.

So far I used posixovl to create (false) symlinks on e-reader. But if was possible have an unix(-like) filesystem it would be great.

[duns]

Originally Posted by Renate

The main reason that ereaders have anything to do with FAT is because of UMS, USB Mass Storage.
This is the system that allows you to plug your ereader into a desktop and see the ereader as a removable disk.

ADE, Adobe Digital Editions expects your device to use UMS.

If you sideload everything using ADB or MTP you might not need UMS.
If you don't use UMS you can use any file system that is supported by your ereader for your content.
You can also get rid of vold, the volume daemon.
If you switch file systems you may have to modify fstab.

My $0.02: UMS, vold, FAT, timestamps in local time all stink.

Thank you. I don'y use ADE, but only free ebook.

[Renate]

Also, I'd use ext2
Since this is an SD card and the content is not that dynamic you'd like to avoid journaling and unnecessary writes.
ext3 & ext4 (by default) have journaling vs ext2 which doesn't.

[duns]

Originally Posted by Renate

Also, I'd use ext2
Since this is an SD card and the content is not that dynamic you'd like to avoid journaling and unnecessary writes.
ext3 & ext4 (by default) have journaling vs ext2 which doesn't.

Thank you, Renate: I will try.

[duns]

Today I tried with a sd-card:

* with ext3: not recognized
* with ext2: not recognized
* with ntfs: not recognized

[lumpynose]

Why do you need symlinks for an sdcard for an ereader?

[duns]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Why do you need symlinks for an sdcard for an ereader?

sd-card is only a try. Symlinks would be very useful to organize my ebooks.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by duns

sd-card is only a try. Symlinks would be very useful to organize my ebooks.

I'd be worried that the ereader software would be confused by sym links. Or not know how to handle them.

Hard links might be less problematic. Sym links are simply little text files containing the path to what they link to. I don't know if it's possible but the software might open the symlink itself rather than follow the link.