[Feature request] Official exFAT-fuse RPM, as now Microsoft allows FLOSS implementations

asked 2019-08-29 06:42:05 +0300

olf gravatar image

updated 2019-09-07 14:55:21 +0300

Dear Sailors,

now that the patent situation and specification license for the exFAT filesystem has been resolved by Microsoft, please provide an official exFAT-fuse RPM.

Reasons:

  • All SDXC cards (i.e., SD cards larger than 32 GB) adhering to the specification of the SD Association come preformatted with exFAT and thus currently must be reformatted to be used with SailfishOS.
    This has been a hurdle for many for long.

  • While Samsung's exFAT implementation for the kernel may now be mainlined soon, it takes years for a recent kernel to be ...

    1. adopted by Google in a new Android / AOSP version
    2. this Android version to be adapted by a device manufacturer (e.g. Sony) for a specific device
    3. the sources of this device specific version of Android to be released by the manufacturer
    4. these sources being adapted and integrated in SailfishOS
    5. the Android runtime environment ("Android support") being adapted to the new "base layer"
    6. the ultimate result being integrated in a SailfishOS release

Happy sailing!

P.S.: The feature request for exFAT support was posed numerous times in the past, but until now Microsoft's patents prevented using the extant FLOSS implementations legally issue-free. See e.g. [1], [2], [3].
Plus the many support requests due to SDXC cards not working "out of the box", e.g. [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].

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Comments

3

Yeah... +100. After all, I had already paid for it during the tablet campaign ...

ossi1967 ( 2019-09-07 19:08:51 +0300 )edit

I don't understand all this fuss about exfat support, I've been using exfat-utils and exfat-fuse for years on my Ubuntu, is this wrong ? Why not implement exfat auto-mount in SFOS3 in the same way ?

SebM ( 2019-11-07 17:01:08 +0300 )edit

I used it on my JollaC with an exfat formatted SD card and it was not reliably. Reliably to the point that I did not trust the data on SD and reformatted to ext.

It was slow, very slow and even stopped completely, e.g. when trying to download new map data for OSM scout server.

For low amount access from time to time it was okay.

peterleinchen ( 2019-11-07 17:53:44 +0300 )edit