Hi Melvin,

I am running Red Hat Linux 8.0. A few version back I was able to compile a custom kernel that had support for NTFS. I compiled the kernel with both read and write capabilities. I was able to mount my windows NT 4.0 NTFS file system and read/wirte to it without issues.

Presently, Microsoft is re-inventing its windows platform to include .net, whatever that is, and the new NTFS file system has been extended to include active directory. In order for a XP/2000 node to take advantage of active directory, it must be managed by a windows 2000 domain server. Eventually, active directory will provide a means where to different domains can be networked together over the internet using TCP/IP. For example, a supplier and his customers could be networked together over the internet, much like Linux can presently mount a remote file system over the internet via TCP/IP.

I recently took a look at compiling a custom kernel under Red Hat Linux that would include support for an NTFS file system. I use xconfig GUI to configure a new kernel before compiling it. The help for NTFS stated that read support was only available for NT 4.0 or below. Also, I was not able to select an option to include write support to a mounted NTFS file system.

Since window is current a work-in-process and its OS/file system is evolving, it may be necessary to wait until windows stabalizes before Linux can write the driver to provide support for the final windows file system.

You may be able to find out more about the current state of mounting an NTFS file system under Linux by doing a serach of the web.

LelandJ