[syslinux] Interest in NTFS

[Andreas Kotes]

Hello,

* H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> [20080602 22:55]:
> Andreas Kotes wrote:
> > I think VFAT long filenames are more worthwhile ...
> > 
> 
> I think this is probably the right sequence of priorities.
> 
> The biggest issue with VFAT long file names -- and I suspect NTFS has 
> the same thing -- is that they use Unicode (UTF-16) filenames, and 
> case-insensitive to boot, which are hard to handle correctly in a pre-OS 
> environment.

Oy - I thought the patent issues where the biggest problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT_licensing .. we
in Europe don't necessarily need to care, but it may be a different
matter in the US?

The case-insensitivity is just what the user's used to from Windows -
but I think this needs to be imitated :-/

> What I think is pretty clear is that non-ASCII characters will have to 
> be a "best effort", and almost certainly won't play nice with the 
> limited internationalization support already in Syslinux.  However, it's 
> probably not really a big deal.

I think the same. Supporting codepage 437 (which brings 'ASCII' with it)
is most likely a must - and codepage 850 ('Latin 1', the bigger markets
in Europe) would be rather nice, and should cover most worries. All
others should be used to trouble with filenames on FS level, and most
likely have found ways to circumvent them already. Perhaps some kind of
modular approach to the whole codepage-issue would allow to bring them
in later easily?

Br,

   Andreas

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