Re: [PATCH 3/3] filesystems.5: wfix: ntfs: remove FAT comparison

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hello Alex and наб

On 12/18/20 4:30 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> From: наб <nabijaczleweli@nabijaczleweli.xyz>
> 
> The main point I was driving at with this patch was to fix
> "Microsoft Window's FAT filesystems" (i.e. FAT filesystems which belong
>  to Microsoft Window, which is decidedly wrong).
> 
> FAT32 first shipped with MS-DOS 7.1, as part of Windows 95 OSR2,
> but it's a (relatively) simple logical extension of the previous FATx
> filesystems (16 and 12 as we know and love them today,
>  I don't think the PC ever saw 8), hence the "VFAT" driver name ‒
> calling FAT-anything a Windows filesystem would be a flat-out lie,
> calling it a Microsoft filesystem would be, uh, facetious.
> 
> NTFS (as part of Windows NT), on the other hand, is wholly different
> WRT the scope and feature-set (it does borrow some layouting from FAT,
>  but reading NTFS as FAT doesn't get you very far, or much).
> 
> The replacing bit is also questionable, especially in a.d. 2020:
> while it is true that you cannot install NT on FAT (after a certain
>  point? my memory ain't what it used to be), and must therefore
> replace your existing FAT partitions with NTFS during upgrades;
> Windows NT 4.0, the last product to be NT-branded came out in 1996,
> i.e. you could not install Windows on FAT (and, therefore,
>  upgrade it to NTFS, replacing it) during my entire lifetime.
> 
> Indeed, in $(date +%Y) we live in a post-NTFS world ‒ putting NTFS in
> the same class as FAT beyond "is a filesystem" is a joke.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ahelenia Ziemiańska <nabijaczleweli@nabijaczleweli.xyz>
> Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>

Thanks. Patch applied. I cleaned up the commit message a little
(removed leading white spaces, formatted to 66 columns as per the 
man-pages norm).

Cheers,

Michael

> ---
>  man5/filesystems.5 | 5 ++---
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/man5/filesystems.5 b/man5/filesystems.5
> index 71be05230..7f2e02096 100644
> --- a/man5/filesystems.5
> +++ b/man5/filesystems.5
> @@ -166,9 +166,8 @@ you need special programs, which can be found at
>  is the network filesystem used to access disks located on remote computers.
>  .TP
>  .B ntfs
> -replaces Microsoft Window's FAT filesystems (VFAT, FAT32).
> -It has reliability, performance, and space-utilization enhancements
> -plus features like ACLs, journaling, encryption, and so on.
> +is the filesystem native to Microsoft Windows NT,
> +supporting features like ACLs, journaling, encryption, and so on.
>  .TP
>  .B proc
>  is a pseudo filesystem which is used as an interface to kernel data
> 


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/