27.4 Accessing Files on Different OS
on the Same Computer
New computers generally ship with a preinstalled operating system, usually Windows.
If you have installed Linux on a different partition, you might want to exchange les
between the different operating systems.
Windows cannot read Linux partitions by default. If you want to exchange les between
these two operating systems, you have to create an “exchange partition”. For a more
direct approach, see http://www.fs-driver.org/ to get a driver supporting an
ext2 lesystem on Windows. The following le systems are used by Windows and can
be accessed from a Linux machine:
FAT
Various avors of this le system are used by MS-DOS and Windows 95 and 98.
You can create this type of le system with YaST. It is possible to read and write
les on FAT partitions from Linux. The size of a FAT partition (and even the
maximum size of a single le) is subject to restrictions, depending on the FAT
version. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFAT for more information
about FAT le systems.
NTFS
The NTFS le system is used by Windows. openSUSE includes write access support
to the NTFS le system. See http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NTFS for
more information about NTFS-3g.
During the installation of openSUSE, your Windows partitions are detected. After
starting your Linux system, the Windows partitions usually are mounted. These are
possible ways of accessing your Windows data:
KDE
Press Alt + F2 and enter sysinfo:/. A new window opens displaying the char-
acteristics of your machine. Disk Information lists your partitions. Look at those
that are of the le system type ntfs or vfat and click these entries. If the partition
is not already mounted, KDE mounts the partition now and displays the contents.
484 Reference
