[Feature suggestion] Official exFAT-fuse RPM, as now Microsoft allows FLOSS implementations

Feature Requests
#1

This feature suggestion was filed in August 2019 at TJC and received some enthusiastic comments by community members, supporting that this makes much sense to be deployed (for details see the original thread at TJC): [Feature request] Official exFAT-fuse RPM, as now Microsoft allows FLOSS implementations

Because Together.Jolla.com has been put into read-only state more than a year after this feature suggestion, and the promised transfer of content from TJC to this forum never materialised, this feature suggestion has to be re-filed here to be able to track and discuss it any further.

I still would appreciate any feedback by sailors on the content of this feature suggestion.
I also do not have the impression that this topic was ever considered at Jolla, at least I have not found anything mentioned anywhere in this regard at TJC or FSO besides my post.

P.S.: Cut & Paste of the core content of this feature suggestion.

[Feature request] Official exFAT-fuse RPM, as now Microsoft allows FLOSS implementations

asked Aug 29 2019

olf gravatar image

olf
10393 â—Ź104 â—Ź201 â—Ź158

updated Sep 7 2019

Dear Sailors,

now that the patent situation and specification license for the exFAT filesystem has been resolved by Microsoft, please provide an official exFAT-fuse RPM.

Reasons:

  • All SDXC cards (i.e., SD cards larger than 32 GB) adhering to the specification of the SD Association come preformatted with exFAT and thus currently must be reformatted to be used with SailfishOS.
    This has been a hurdle for many for long.
  • While Samsung’s exFAT implementation for the kernel may now be mainlined soon, it takes years for a recent kernel to be …
    1. adopted by Google in a new Android / AOSP version
    2. this Android version to be adapted by a device manufacturer (e.g. Sony) for a specific device
    3. the sources of this device specific version of Android to be released by the manufacturer
    4. these sources being adapted and integrated in SailfishOS
    5. the Android runtime environment (“Android support”) being adapted to the new “base layer”
    6. the ultimate result being integrated in a SailfishOS release

Happy sailing!

P.S.: The feature request for exFAT support was posed numerous times in the past, but until now Microsoft’s patents prevented using the extant FLOSS implementations legally issue-free. See e.g. [1], [2], [3].
Plus the many support requests due to SDXC cards not working “out of the box”, e.g. [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].

6 Likes
#2

exFAT is in upstream kernel now, though android versions might lag (or have no backports of it), need to check.

#3

I would need this feature to get my camera connected via OTG (or the SD cards it writes) to get photos into the phone.
My camera (Fujifilm X-Pro3) uses exFAT on the SD cards. If I’m not mistaken, pretty much all the camera makers make use of exFAT on their memory cards.

EDIT:
Ahaa… digging deeper into the subject… Fuji cameras at least seem to make VFAT/FAT32 on cards up to 32GB and exFAT on cards from 64GB upwards. So my assumption above was not correct about file systems. It seems to be that it’s according to SD specifications what comes to file systems on specific sizes (If I know understood correctly).

#4

For use with digital cameras, simply format an SD-card ≤ 2 TB with vFAT (FAT32) on your SailfishOS device or Linux computer, see the very first bullet point of this guide.

This works fine, as long as you do not need file-sizes larger than 2 GB.