Native Support For exFAT Filesystems On Linux Will Be Added Soon

exFAT, the short form of from Extended File Allocation Table is the default file system used on memory sticks and other devices that are designed to work on Microsoft Windows systems. As you may know, FAT32 is an old file system used on Windows, ages ago, before NTFS. The problem with it was that it forbit the user to copy files bigger than 4GB. exFAT, or FAT64 is an improved FAT32 filesystem, that got the 4GB restriction removed, since copying dvd images is quite a utility.

The exfat-nofuse drivers brings support for exFAT filesystems on Linux and Unix systems. The developers intend to add native support for exFAT file systems directly to the kernels, via the fuse-exfat tool. Only the users with a system having Linux Kernel 3.8.11 or newer can use the exfat-utils, to write or read files on exFAT partitions, directly from their Linux box. For now, the exFAT filesystem support is added to the Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and others via FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace).

http://nfgk.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/exfat.jpeg?w=500

The exfat-utils package is available in the default repositories only for Arch Linux, since it uses bleeding edge technology, so all you have to do to install it is:

$ sudo pacman -Sy exfat-utils

For Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail, Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, Linux Mint 16 Petra, Linux Mint 15 Olivia, Linux Mint 14 Nadia, Linux Mint 13 Maya, Debian Jessie, Debian Sid, Debian Wheezy, Debian Squeeze we have to install the exfat-nofuse package from source code, follow this intructions:

Install Git and get the source code for Exfat-nofuse:

$ sudo apt-get install git
$ git clone https://github.com/rxrz/exfat-nofuse.git

Install Exfat-nofuse:

$ cd exfat-nofuse
$ make
$ sudo make install

Load the Exfat-nofuse module to the kernel:

$ sudo modprobe exfat_fs

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2 comments on “Native Support For exFAT Filesystems On Linux Will Be Added Soon
  1. Erik says:

    It should be mentioned that you need to have the kernel sources installed, since you are essentially building a new kernel module here with the kernel sources. Plus, when the kernel gets a minor version number upgrade, you need to redo this since the old module will be gone.

  2. Spencer Sims says:

    To install exfat on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, you don’t need to add any extra PPA to your sources list. You only need exfat-utils package
    $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install exfat-utils

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