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Elmario

Member

Registered: 2023-08-21

Posts: 64

[SOLVED:] Replace ntfs3 by ntfs-3g

Hello!

Would it be possible to replace the default ntfs3 by ntfs-3g?
By 'default' I mainly mean how Thunar mounts partitions when clicking on them in the file manager, but also the ntfs implentation being used when simply typing 'mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/ntfs' without explicitly specifying 'type -ntfs-3g'.

Thank you!

Last edited by Elmario (2025-01-07 14:43:37)

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,147

Re: [SOLVED:] Replace ntfs3 by ntfs-3g

well - ntfs3 is a in-tree kernel driver where ntfs-3g is userland fuse driver - so if you want to use ntfs-3g over ntfs3 you have to
a) provide ntfs-3g
b) remove ntfs3 from your kernel by compile your own
otherwise it depends on if the applications you want to use it with offer a way to configure it (as mount with -t option) - if they don't you could also fork them and modify them to explicitly use ntfs-3g over ntfs3

or - what I recommend personal - don't use NTFS on linux at all
if you want to exchange data between windows and linux either use network shares or exFAT

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,581

Re: [SOLVED:] Replace ntfs3 by ntfs-3g

You can directly swap between them, what you want to look at for mounting managers is at configuring the default driver to use for udisks. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Udisks … nt_options and by extension https://storaged.org/doc/udisks2-api/la … tions.html

Which boils down to creating a /etc/udisks2/mount_options.conf with the content

[defaults]
ntfs_driver=ntfs

which should make it pick ntfs-3g again.

And just for a counter opinion to the above: I  didn't have and continue to not have an inherent issue with NTFS drivers for the last 15 years I've been using linux, bar some corruption brought by the new ntfs3 driver when it was new, which also seems to have mostly subsided, but ymmv. It has worked fine for shared media/steam/wine games.

Elmario

Member

Registered: 2023-08-21

Posts: 64

Re: [SOLVED:] Replace ntfs3 by ntfs-3g

I will try the changes and see how far I can get it working.

PS:
I don't 'use' NTFS for my own needs. But I sometimes hel other people with file recovery/backup/copy/upload/download data who are using Windows (and sometimes need meta data like modification date and NTFS permissions).

Thank you!

Last edited by Elmario (2024-12-05 13:14:05)

Elmario

Member

Registered: 2023-08-21

Posts: 64

Re: [SOLVED:] Replace ntfs3 by ntfs-3g

Which boils down to creating a /etc/udisks2/mount_options.conf with the content

[defaults]
ntfs_driver=ntfs

which should make it pick ntfs-3g again.

Thank you!

After many weeks of fighting totally different other issues, including but not only a huge data loss caused by accidentally deleting my whole documents folder because of senility, which I had to recover, I now came back to doing what I originally intended.

And the solution you provided is working.
Thunar and the mount command now default to mounting ntfs partitions using ntfs-3g!

(could you mabye in short explain why providing the 'ntfs' parameter results in ntfs-3g being used (and not ntfs3, which soujnds closer), so I can comprehend and remember this better?)

Regards

Last edited by Elmario (2025-01-07 14:43:05)