We are happy to announce the next stable release of NTFS-3G and ntfsprogs.

The source code is available at

git clone git://ntfs-3g.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ntfs-3g/ntfs-3g

The package contains the following improvements, changes and fixes:

• ntfs-3g: fixed device path canonicalization for use by devmapper
• ntfs-3g: fixed setting DOS names when defined with lower-case chars
• ntfs-3g: fixed attribute flags controlling recursive writes
• ntfs-3g: fixed compilation on OpenIndiana
• ntfs-3g: fixed options parsing on OSes with no extended attributes
• ntfs-3g: fixed relatime as a default mount option
• ntfs-3g: fixed endless recursion when MFT extents are described by themselves
• ntfs-3g: fixed the description of inherit option
• ntfs-3g: fixed overwriting a truncated file
• ntfs-3g: fixed truncation of DOS file names (12 ntfschars, not 12 utf8 chars)
• ntfs-3g: fixed the setting of attributes by secaudit (index not synced)
• ntfs-3g: faster compression
• ntfs-3g: new option delay_mtime to delay updates of mtime+ctime
• ntfsfix: new option -d to clear the dirty flag if fix is successful
• ntfsfix: fixed volume dirty flag test
• ntfsfix: new option to clear the list of bad sectors
• ntfsfix: fixed compilation on Sparc
• ntfsfix: fixed a bug causing a segmentation violation
• ntfsfix: repair self-located MFT data bug
• ntfscp: fix free space calculation
• ntfscp: support compression
• ntfsresize: implemented expanding runlists
• ntfsresize: updated the description of the -f option
• ntfsresize: expand an NTFS volume downwards
• ntfsclone: backup bootsector not be to accounted for
• ntfsclone: creating/restoring a metadata image
• ntfsundelete: try to recover the file name when undeleting
• ntfsundelete: use inode number to name unnamed files
• ntfswipe: Big endian and other fixes
• secaudit: prefixed owner and group SID in ACL display
• library: fixed big cluster support using 4kB sector disk
• library: fixed huge data writes
• library: use transparent compression by default
• library: fixed several bad returns in error conditions
• library: enabled getting the sector size on FreeBSD and MacOSX
• build: fixed “make libs” to only build libraries

The stable release is available at

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

Many thanks to Jean-Pierre Andre, Erik Larsson and many other contributors!

Tuxera Open Source Team

See more information:

• Tuxera Integrates NTFS, exFAT, FAT32 and HFS+ into Intel® Atom™ Solutions, MeeGo Linux
• Tuxera Launches Tuxera File System Suite, First to Combine NTFS, exFAT and HFS+ for Android
• Tuxera Extends exFAT and NTFS Support to QNX Neutrino RTOS
• Tuxera exFAT Now Available for Android and Linux
• Tuxera Becomes SD Association Member to Meet the Industry Needs in Data Portability
• Tuxera Signs Intellectual Property Agreement with Microsoft

We are happy to announce the stable, merged release of ntfsprogs and NTFS-3G.

The merged codebase will help to avoid duplicated maintenance of the large, complex NTFS codebase, so development can focus on enhanced unctionality,
reliability, and interoperability in the future.

Several alternatives have been considered how to organize the code (library, tools, driver). The preferred solution is the simplest way which is one large package, like Samba. So, there will be need to install only one NTFS package (ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs), not two (ntfsprogs, ntfs-3g).

The code and status is available at

git clone git://ntfs-3g.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ntfs-3g/ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs

The new package is a compatible, drop-in replacement for both ntfs-3g and ntfsprogs.

The package contains the following improvements, changes and fixes:

• ntfs-3g: fixed possible wrong hole size when overwriting compressed data.
• ntfs-3g: fixed listxattr() to environments with extended attributes.
• ntfs-3g: fixed ENOSPC when making an index non-resident.
• ntfs-3g: fixed partial mapping ahead of mapped runlist.
• ntfs-3g: enabled forensic mounting (currently same as read-only).
• ntfs-3g: expand an attribute without creating a hole.
• ntfs-3g: improved appending data to a long hole.
• ntfs-3g: deny direct modifications to metadata files.
• ntfs-3g: option ‘acl’ to request the use of Posix ACLs.
• ntfsclone: fixed reading old big-endian ntfsclone images.
• ntfsclone: avoided writing beyond allocated variable.
• ntfsclone: close volume and cleanup when exiting.
• ntfsclone: new option not to clear the timestamps.
• ntfsclone: sync created image before remounting.
• ntfsclone: use a stream to produce aligned writes during image creation.
• ntfsinfo: display times in UTC.
• mkntfs: don’t store full bitmap and logfile in memory.
• mkntfs: set a volume UUID if option -U.
• mkntfs: fixed $MFT allocated size.
• mkntfs: fixed allocated size of resident unnamed data.
• ntfsfix: new option -n for no action.
• ntfsfix: try alternate boot sector if cannot start up.
• ntfsfix: check and fix the upcase table.
• ntfsfix: try to fix file systems with incorrect size.
• ntfsundelete: fixed a segfault.
• ntfsresize: new option –info-mb-only.
• ntfsresize: new option –check.

The release candidate is available at

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

Many thanks to Jean-Pierre Andre and Erik Larsson to make this happen!

Tuxera Open Source Team

The new stable NTFS-3G release contains the following improvements, changes and fixes:

• New: implemented fsync() and fsyncdir().
• New: implemented the ‘sync’ mount option.
• New: sanity check upcase table.
• New: added a big-endian extended attribute name for attrib and times.
• New: added an extended attribute name for creation time.
• New: enable renaming of system extended attributes.
• Change: improved appending data to fragmented files.
• Change: improved rebuilding a runlist.
• Change: improved comparing filename on big-endian CPUs.
• Fixed stat(2) for system files with no data.
• Fixed alignment on cached structures.
• Fixed Posix ACLs for big-endian CPUs.
• Fixed deleting files using ignore_case option.
• Fixed allocated size when an attribute update causes unnamed data to be expelled.

The latest release of the software is available at http://www.tuxera.com/

Enjoy!

Tuxera Open Source Team

The new release candidate integrates the shared component MacFUSE closer into the driver to simplify installation and adds support for Mac users running the fully 64-bit Snow Leopard kernel (the ‘X86_64′ kernel flavor). This means that the newest Mac Pros (mid-2010) will be able to use Tuxera NTFS for Mac without switching to the 32/64-bit hybrid kernel which is the default on all other consumer Macs.

Along with these changes there have been numerous other improvements, for instance:

• Driver now runs in 64-bit mode on Intel 64-bit and PowerPC G5 processors (only Mac OS X 10.5 and later).
• Bugfix for extended attribute handling which caused file copying problems in some cases.
• Disabled the ‘archive’ flag for directories because of conflict with Finder.
• Fixed incompatibility with TrueCrypt volumes.
• Driver codebase synchronized with NTFS-3G 2010.8.8 (see: NTFS-3G release history for a list of changes).

Feedback from users running the 64-bit kernel is most appreciated. Please post your experiences in the forum, or send an email to our dedicated support email address if you’re a customer. Thank you.

This new version brings some important features for Tuxera’s commercial NTFS software for Mac OS X. Most importantly, extended attributes are now fully enabled and mapped to Alternate Data Streams if you are running Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.

Extended attributes is a way of appending more than one data stream to a file, and this mechanism is used in Mac OS X for various things such as Finder information, the legacy “resource forks”, quarantine flags and much more.

In previous versions of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, extended attributes were supported but only using a compatibility mechanism storing them inside files starting with ‘._’ (called AppleDouble files), just like it is done with FAT32 file systems. This means that all files that had extended attributes applied to them also had a supplementary file created in the same directory holding those attributes. This does not happen any more. Instead, extended attributes are stored as Alternate Data Streams in NTFS, and can be accessed from within Windows using standard methods. The extended attributes are fully compatible with Mac OS X’s own NTFS driver and Windows Server’s “Services for Macintosh” extension (now discontinued).

Along with these changes there have been numerous other fixes, for instance:

• Fix for a rare issue where Tuxera NTFS for Mac could ‘hijack’ the mounting of certain unformatted media.
• Storing the Mac OS X backup timestamp is now supported.
• Preference pane is partly rewritten to be more robust and to leave no zombie processes behind.

Also, Tuxera NTFS for Mac has been synchronized with NTFS-3G so that all features and fixes as of NTFS-3G 2010.5.22 are included in the new release of Tuxera NTFS for Mac (see release history).

Tip: To convert your existing extended attributes, stored in ‘._’ files, to the newer storage method there is a command line utility called ‘dot_clean‘ that is relatively easy to use. It is present in Mac OS X 10.5 and later. This is an example of how to use it:

dot_clean /Volumes/NTFSVolume

You must replace ‘/Volumes/NTFSVolume’ with the path to your NTFS volume. This command will scan through an entire hierarchy of directories for ‘._’ files and merge their content into proper extended attributes. For more information about dot_clean, please read the manpage (‘man dot_clean‘).

This time Tuxera has record number of software releases! The topics:

• Stable NTFS-3G 2010.5.22
• NTFS-3G 2010.6.31-RC Release Candidate
• NTFS-3G for Mac 2010.5.22
• Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.6-RC Release Candidate

The stable NTFS-3G 2010.5.22 release is a minor update which addresses creating the missing usermap and secaudit utilities.

The software is available at

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

The new NTFS-3G 2010.6.31-RC release candidate contains exciting, major improvements, and the below changes and fixes:

• New: Full, transparent, read-write compression support.
• New: Two new mount options: compression and nocompression (default).
• New: Introduced windows_names mount option to enforce only Windows names.
• Change: Re-enabled compression in root directory.
• Change: Reversed default for showing/hiding hidden files.
• Change: Redefined default user mapping.
• Change: Marked files whose name has a dot initial as “hidden” if option hide_dot_files is used.
• Change: Renamed option default_permissions to permissions.
• Fixed use of utimensat() with external fuse older than 2.8.
• Fixed a hang when reading a corrupt compressed file.
• Fixed a possible crash when creating a stream.
• Fixed all reported and found compressed write related bugs.

Download it from the below web page

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

The long awaited NTFS-3G for Mac 2010.5.22 is also here. Changes since the last release:

• Everything which is included in stable NTFS-3G 2010.5.22.
• Fix: NTFS-3G for Mac could “hijack” non-NTFS volumes in extremely rare cases, leaving them unmountable until NTFS-3g for Mac was disabled.
• Fix: The NTFS-3G for Mac preference pane will no longer leave zombie processes behind.

For more information please see

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/2010/06/ntfs-3g-for-mac-os-x-2010522.html

The latest release candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high-performance commercial NTFS driver is out as well.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.1:

• Extended attribute support. Tuxera NTFS for Mac now supports storing Mac streams such as Finder information and resource forks as extended attributes, translating to Alternate Data Streams in Windows terminology. This means that NTFS drives will no longer be littered with ‘._’ (AppleDouble) files. Services For Mac attributes are used for the special attributes ‘com.apple.FinderInfo’ and ‘com.apple.ResourceFork’.
• Support for storing the Mac OS backup timestamp.
• All new features, enhancements and fixes included in stable NTFS-3G for Mac 2010.5.22.

Please see more at

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Tuxera Open Source Team

I was presenting today in Turin, Italy, at Europe Unlimited’s venture contest before an international investor and expert panel. At the end of the day I was thrilled to see Tuxera was awarded as the event winner! We are thus among the top 100 companies selected from different events around the Europe during the fall…

During the day I had interesting talks with investors and other entrepreneurs. One of the most positive and energetic persons was undoubtedly Rick Salmon who runs Xelerator out from Oslo, Norway. He answered to those who said you should start from local markets that when a company finds the right focus the market is and must be global. Cannot agree more. Tuxera’s market has been global from day 1.

Update 27.11. Here is a short video clip of the award ceremony and my interview after the event.

Next month I will talk at Eurecan European Venture Contest semi-final in Turin, Italy. Date is November 5 and I expect it will be very exciting to network with central European companies.

Spent this morning at Microsoft’s BizSpark event in Espoo.

It was a three hour session with a number of short talks and enthusiasm to get Microsoft partners to work and cooperate together. Keynote speaker was Petri I Salonen who runs IAMCP and TELLUS International in the US. A well motivated talk from a seasoned software entrepreneur.

I also explained Tuxera to Artur Surov from Technolopolis Ventures and I am going to pitch Tuxera again 10.9.2009 in their MoneyTalks event.

Overall it was a surprisingly lively morning event and also productive for us. It was nice to get direct feedback on who we are and what we do at Tuxera. I am confident we can find opportunities with other partners in the Microsoft ecosystem in the near future.

“I can’t believe we are here!”, Szabolcs remarked as soon as we had driven from the Seattle airport to Redmond and signed in to our mighty American-size hotel rooms. It was indeed a trip with a lot of preparation. Our talks with Microsoft had started almost a year ago when the company was founded. I had changed my role from an outside counsel to a company man sometime in March. First and foremost to get this deal done.

We came to Redmond to have an agreement, and in the end that is what we got. Three days of intensive meetings and talking — it was very impressive to see a big company work very effectively when they finally wanted to go for it while we were there.

After we had signed, someone from Microsoft asked: “Have we ever done a deal so quickly?” “I don’t think so,” was the answer.

A quick signature for a man, but a giant leap for the company.