[SC.LUG] Re: Using FAT partitions r/w accessible from Linux and MS XP

[Roger Gibson]

I've found part of the answer to my query below, but do not understand 
it.  If I set a users flag in fstab, so
anyone can mount and unmount partitions, I can as a user unmount and
then mount the partitions so that I then own them.  Time stamps then
carry across (chown did not seem to work).  However, inspite of setting
vfat flags in fstab, I find that some files get case changes to lower
case when copied to the fat partitions.  Not all but particularly ones
which are all upper case.  Annoyingly, Bill G always gets the case 
correctly.

Can anyone help with this?  My published query (How to get FAT.  LXF Jan
05 p 103) to Linux Format implied all would be well if I used vfat.

I use case to help quickly identify certain sorts of files, and have
many 1000s of lines of old Fortran, dating back to well before my first
Unix efforts on a Whitechapel Workstation (half MIP) in early 80s.  It
would be a long tedious job to change now.

Roger Gibson wrote:

> Sorry to be asking such a questionable question, but I have managed 
> (apparently successfully) to repartition my 2 hard discs by adding 
> some FAT32 partitions.  MS XP seems happy with these, and Suse 8.2 
> recognises them, and read/writes to them quite happily.
>
> The only problem seems to be that when writing from Suse 8.2 using cp 
> -p etc, the FAT partition refuses the timestamp and gives the copied 
> file the current time.  Otherwise everything looks fine.  I can not 
> think how access writes etc can affect the time stamp if I can write 
> the file in the first place.
>
> This is quite important to me as I use this to support software on 
> other installations, and having the same timestamp enables me to be 
> sure of the up to dateness of files.
>
> Has anyone any ideas please, other than castigating me for treachery?
>
> I'll have to get to a meeting soon and put faces to names.
>
>