Linus Torvalds has accepted into the kernel Linux 7.1, the release of which is expected in mid-June, a set of changes with a new implementation of the driver for the file system NTFS. The new driver is included under the name «ntfs», which was previously used for the remote version of the old driver that operated in read-only mode. Until now, the main NTFS driver in the kernel remained ntfs3, added a few years ago by Paragon Software.
The new implementation has been prepared by kernel developer Namjae Jeon who previously participated in the development of exFAT, KSMBD and other subsystems. The work on the driver has been in progress for about four years and represents a rework of the original NTFS driver with a cleaner codebase, which includes write support, modern features, and improved integration with current Linux kernel mechanisms.
Among the advantages of the new implementation are full write support, higher stability compared to ntfs3, passing more tests xfstests, as well as using modern kernel features such as iomap in folio. Additionally, custom utilities for the new implementation have been prepared for fsck. According to the authors, in terms of internal integration with modern kernel features, the new driver appears more favorable than the current one. ntfs3.
Before being included in the main branch, the code was in linux-next, for about two months, where it underwent additional testing and review. The total volume of the new and revised codebase is estimated at more than 36 thousand lines.
Notably, initially, Linus Torvalds rejected the first attempt to include the new driver due to formatting issues with the pull request in Git, but after submitting a corrected version, the changes were ultimately accepted. Torvalds himself described what happened as «ntfs resurrection». At the same time, the driver ntfs3 remains in the kernel source tree for now, and the new implementation can be included through the option NTFS_FS u Kconfig.
Izvor: linux.org.ru
