stange message while mounting ntfs (fc6)

Kevin Kofler kevin.kofler at chello.at
Mon Jan 22 23:56:23 UTC 2007


François Patte <francois.patte <at> math-info.univ-paris5.fr> writes:
> WARNING: Old FUSE kernel module detected. This means, some driver features
> are not available (swap file on NTFS, boot from NTFS by LILO),
> and unmount is not safe unless you make sure the ntfs-3g process
> naturally terminates after calling 'umount'. The safe FUSE kernel
> driver is included in the official Linux kernels since version
> 2.6.20-rc1, or in the FUSE 2.6 software package. Please see the
> next page for more help: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/support.html#fuse26
> 
> kernel is 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6  (not 2.6.20...!) fuse module is in use when 
> I lsmod.
> 
> I don't understand the meaning of this message.

In short, it means ntfs-3g is way faster at development than any distro is at 
updating the kernel. (Fedora is already very quick there, go any faster and you 
get something like Rawhide. 2.6.20 hasn't even been released yet!)

The problem is that they fixed some bugs and added some features in the FUSE 
kernel module after 2.6.19 was already released, but you don't have these fixes 
and features yet (since they aren't in any official kernel release, only in 
release candidates (rc)), so ntfs-3g warns you about that. This warning is 
mostly harmless. In fact, if Fedora Extras just shipped an old ntfs-3g without 
that warning, you'd still have the exact same issues (both the missing features 
and the umount reliability problem), it's just that there's now a solution and 
you don't have it yet, so the latest ntfs-3g warns you about that. 2.6.20 will 
almost certainly be pushed as an FC6 update as soon as it is released. For now, 
just be careful with umount of ntfs partitions.

        Kevin Kofler




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