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Re: VFAT vs. umask.



On Thu 04 Aug 2022 at 13:27:34 (-0400), gene heskett wrote:
> On 8/4/22 10:47, peter@easthope.ca wrote:
> >      From: Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com>
> >      Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 13:39:00 -0600
> > > The preparation of any storage medium requires at least two steps. To
> > > format means ...
> > > 
> > > In another step one lays down a file system: ...
> > Understood, at a superficial level at least.  Haven't invented or
> > implemented a file system.
> > 
> > > Microsoft conflated the two, leading to much confusion over the
> > > years.
> > Even prominent software uses "format" loosely.  Eg. Gparted >
> > Partition > Format to > ... .

I searched my way through
https://gparted.org/display-doc.php?name=help-manual
and couldn't find any ambiguity. They use the term to mean what you
want to call a "high-level format", "laying down a filesystem", or
some neologism.

> > If we really want to improve terminology we need to
> > (1) understand intimately software such as gparted,
> > (2) find or invent terms more specific than "format",
> > (3) convince maintainers to fix the bugs (adopt the new terms) and
> > (4) take credit for the revolutionary improvements.  =8~)
> > 
> > > Try mounting it from the command line, and watch the output. That will
> > > show you whether it is being fscked. However, FAT has no ability to
> > > store when it was last fscked, so I would wonder why it was being
> > > fscked at all.
> > In further observations, the problem is primarily in the old Fedora
> > based OLPC XO system.  Debian Bullseye usually recognizes and mounts
> > the f.s. on the SD card with no difficulty.  Rather than troubleshoot
> > the obsolete system I'll continue an effort to make DebXO work on the
> > XO 1.5 machine.

Is this the X/Y problem's Z?

> Having worked on a couple filesystems in a past life, all I can do is
> say +100 Peter.
> "format" is one of the most overloaded words in our vocabulary.

Really?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/format
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/set

Cheers,
David.


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