Hacking Libntfs released

[computerboy]

It's finally here.

libntfs is a port of the NTFS-3G driver to the Nintendo GameCube/Wii, modelled on the libfat interface.

NTFS-3G is an open source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Libntfs

 

[DoctorWhosThat]

I have been waiting a very long time for this... finally, NTFS support can be added to any existing and future homebrew applications and emulators.

By the way, MPlayerCE has already added this. Although, at least now our USB devices can now be put to full use on the Wii!

Excellent Job... as it has been worth the wait!

Edit: NTFS Support in MPlayer CE v0.75 (YouTube)

I'm not embedding a video for the benifit for those who still have Dial-up or a slow connection.

 

[computerboy]

I have been waiting a very long time for this... finally, NTFS support can be added to any existing and future homebrew applications and emulators.

By the way, MPlayerCE has already added this. Although, at least now our USB devices can now be put to full use on the Wii!

Excellent Job... as it has been worth the wait!

Already on MplayerCE??!! I got to check it out

 

[KirovAir]

YES!
I' ll try to port it to Wad Manager after work. I hope that waninkoko will update all his apps to be able to use NTFS. Since I store all my data on a NTFS partition.

@Uranuskiller, fixed.

 

[mousex]

I have been waiting a very long time for this... finally, NTFS support can be added to any existing and future homebrew applications and emulators.

By the way, MPlayerCE has already added this. Although, at least now our USB devices can now be put to full use on the Wii!

Excellent Job... as it has been worth the wait!

Lol, I compiled it yesterday from SVN for myself and now it's released

Most important applications to add NTFS support to are: HBC/Loadmii

I'm fiddling with the Loadmii source at the moment.

 

[UranusKiller]

YES!
I' ll try to port it to Wad Manager after work. I hope that waninkoko will update all his apps to be able to use NTSC. Since I store all my data on a NTSC partition.

NTFS not NTSC

 

[mousex]

Maybe he uses a USB tape drive with NTSC cassetts (does something like this even exist?).

 

[drmarvin]

Not that everyone wants to redo their WBFS drives, but could USB loaders be designed to also use NTFS if we wanted? Then we wouldn't even have to partition the USB drives.

Just curious.

 

[tobeychris]

Games would be their full size of 4.7GB on an NTFS partition, not their minimized size as they are on a WBFS partition... many people would require 2-5x the HDD space.

ie: Say you have 50 games that take up 100GB of space on a WBFS partition, if you have those .iso files on an NTFS partition they would require 50x4.7GB = 235GB, more then double the amount of space.

This probably isn't an issue for most people, but there are advantages to WBFS.

 

[drmarvin]

Is there a specific reason that the images could not be optimized for NTFS too? Without knowing exactly how WBFS works, I'm not sure how the images are saved.

 

[gilaben]

Games would be their full size of 4.7GB on an NTFS partition, not their minimized size as they are on a WBFS partition... many people would require 2-5x the HDD space.

ie: Say you have 50 games that take up 100GB of space on a WBFS partition, if you have those .iso files on an NTFS partition they would require 50x4.7GB = 235GB, more then double the amount of space.

This probably isn't an issue for most people, but there are advantages to WBFS.


QUOTE(drmarvin @ Aug 20 2009, 02:35 PM) Is there a specific reason that the images could not be optimized for NTFS too? Without knowing exactly how WBFS works, I'm not sure how the images are saved.

Wow... I'm pretty sure that when Usb Loader is ripping a game it's just doing a compression similar to PC tools like 'Wii Scrubber'. NTFS can have compressed ISOs as well.

 

[Overload180]

Is there a specific reason that the images could not be optimized for NTFS too? Without knowing exactly how WBFS works, I'm not sure how the images are saved.

format the ntfs as a compressed drive and all the 4.7gb iso files will be stored with all the dummy data compressed just as it does in the wbfs formatted hdd.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

Even though NTFS is one of the worst filesystems known to man and ext2 would be a much better choice, I think that USB Loaders should support it since you can view the filesystem easily.

EDIT: That's only hypothetical. I'm saying, if we could do it, it would be nice.

 

[drmarvin]

Whichever the filesystem is, I wouldn't complain if you could just have one partition on the drive to have everything (movies, NAND emu, games, etc). Just like you could do with XBox 1.

That's why I was asking. I assumed that was how things were compressed, so I don't see why there would be any difference with doing it for NTFS. I don't know if there would be plans for it, but I just wanted to know if it was possible (probably to support either one, so people wouldn't have to redo their existing drives if they don't want to)

 

[goku21temp]

awesome ... i think it would be a great idea to go from wbfs to ntfs

 

[FAST6191]

First off nice work all involved. NTFS seems to be one of those "have to live with it" things and this is sure to make life bearable.

As for USB reading and compression NTFS-3g can only read compressed files (and that is a fairly new feature), writing them is another matter entirely (no dumping games via the wii) and if I understand the differences in methods we are probably going to suffer a speed penalty as well (WBFS uses a known fact about Wii disc formats while NTFS is "dumb" compression* which will incur a time penalty where the other is nearly transparent).

*I will spare another wii scrubbing basics lesson but suffice it to say the reason we have scrubbing is because dumb compression alone does not work.

@drmarvin while you could have such a thing appear that way to a user it is/was in fact anything but a single partition. Also XBMC could link in multiple directories across drives into "virtual" folders, no reason such a thing could not happen here.

 

[drmarvin]

Just curious about how things work. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter, since at this point we can dump using WBFS with the Wii and a computer, so that's good. Also, NTFS might make things tougher for Linux users.

And I believe that things with partition ordera and stuff are being resolved.

 

[Screemer]

i started of a poll in the backuploader section and got beaten in the first reply. don't expect anything to come: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=175067

 

[UranusKiller]

ntfs can't be used in backups, use must have no idea about ntfs, or why wbfs has been solely written for wii!
I think most of you don't know nothing about NTFS or WBFS.
WBFS doesn't compress, only copies the files to the wbfs partition, NTFS driver can manage compressed files (not encrypted).
Wii scrubbing only fills with 0 unused disk sectors, so when you compress the iso then improves the compression.
WBFS only copies the files, not the sectors, is not an iso
When you extract an iso from a wii game you copy all dvd sectors, and the sectors that are emptied are also encrypted.
Files are encrypted, not compressed in original wii games.

Wii scrubber replace unused sectors by 0, then the compress program can compress the emptied space.
So a compress program is not going to compress.
I think this ntfs in backups isn't ever going to happen, and it's not needed, it's pointless.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

ntfs can't be used in backups ffs, use must have no idea about ntfs, or why wbfs has been solely written for wii!

It can be used. It would just be a stupid choice.

The good thing for it is that you can read it on most computers.