Short: V1.0.5, *62* char dir/filenames for ffs Author: sintonen@st.jyu.fi (Harry Sintonen) Uploader: sintonen st jyu fi (Harry Sintonen) Type: util/patch Version: 1.0.5 Architecture: m68k-amigaos ********************************************************** WARNING! Found out that this patch is broken (thanks for pointing this out laire;), so do not use it. I will try to fix it later, meanwhile don't use it (or use it at your own risk). Sorry. ********************************************************** This is a patch that will allow you to use max. 62 character file and dirnames with fastfilesystem. IMPORTANT! Read this readme file carefully before trying to install patched fastfilesystem. For each step try to understand why it is done. Thank you. A patched ffs version that I know will crash your hd, kill your cat, run off with your SO and cause other assorted nastiness. Other than that, it works. That was just a warning. ;) Anyways, if you will use it you need to compile it by yourself. This is to prevent newbies from trashing their partitions. SAS/C, StormC, or gcc should do. This might change in the future. Now that you have succefully compiled the program I suggest you to get V43.19 (or later) fastfilesystem from www.amiga.de/files/. Now you should make a _bootable_ backup floppy disk containing hdtoolbox, your current fastfilesystem (or none if you use ROM ffs) and required libraries and stuff. Make sure this disk really works and that you can start hdtoolbox with it. This kind of disk is really handy to have around anyways. If you currently have l:fastfilesystem rename it to l:fastfilesystem.orig or something like that. Then unarchive V43 fastfilesystem lha and do: `patchffs some:path/fastfilesystem l:fastfilesystem' you should see some output from patchffs. If you see `patch failed.' -messages something went wrong. In that case I suggest you to rename original filesystem back and forget it. ;) If everything seems to be ok you can now install new fastfilesystem to RigidDiskBlocks of your hard disk(s). Note that this is absolutely required, copying patched filesystem to l: directory does not install it. You can either update old fastfilesystem or install patched fastfilesystem as new one. Installing it as new is recommended. If you install filesystem as new one it is a fairly good idea to 'or' 0x10 to ID number of filesystem ID. Like normally FFS uses 0x444F5301 and for patched ffs you should use 0x444F5311. That way only those partitions you choose should use patched ffs (in theory, I'm not 100% sure about this). If you want to play it safe, mount partitions manually (remember to change the ID to 0x444F5311 though) using c:mount. After adding/updating filesystem, change chosen partitions to use this patched filesystem. It is a `good idea (tm)' to test it on some spare partition before really using it (and I wouldn't install my precious files on such partition anyways. This thing is ideal for mp3 partitions;). You might also want to do this for other physical drives, in that case install patched fastfilesystem on those too. Now, reboot your amiga. If you just updated your old fastfilesystem (eg. didn't change id 0x444F5301) your system should work just as usual. You don't need to format partitions. If you did install filesystem as new and changed id (to 0x444F5311) disks (might) appear NDOS. Then quickformat each partition. Now play around a bit. Create some files with long filenames. Delete them. If everything seems to work fine (no weird checksum errors or something like that) you have successfully installed patched fastfilesystem. If somethins goes wrong read this .readme again. If it seems to be my fault, I'm sorry about that. It works for me. No guarantees it works for you. Standard disclaimer. Important notes, READ THIS! Patched fastfilesystem is 100% downwards compatible. This means that you can use normal ffs partition thru patched ffs without need to reformat. Patched fastfilesystem is 100% upwards compatible, *if* you don't use *any* long filenames on the disk. If you accidently use partition having long filenames with old fastfilesystem the disk will appear corrupt (technical: this is because hash calculated with max 30 characters differs from one calculated with full filename lenght). Try to prevent partitions using long filenames from getting invalidated. I have no idea what will happen in automatic disk validation process. It might well blow up. Do NOT, in any conditions try to reorg, disksalv or qbtools partition having long filenames. The disk *will* appear corrupt. Backup your data (this might need some special arrangements because files being backed up have long filenames =) ). Do not run any application that bangs ffs disk blocks directly. There shouldn't be many such program around anyways (reorg tools, disk recovery tools come to mind). I don't know if directory caching works. Don't use it, it's really not worth it anyways. Even though dos.library supports 106 character filenames, ffs can NOT. There is only 64 bytes space for file/dir name in ffs disk block. BTW dos.library works just fine with long filenames. Even though patched fastfilesystem and dos.library support long filenames, some applications might not. If you find out that application does not support long filenames try to contact its author and ask him to add support for long paths and filenames. Usually this can be done in minutes (few changes to code and recompile). Reorg, disk recovery etc. tools will need more work. I hope we will see some support. regards, Harry "Piru" Sintonen P.S For reasons I won't mention here my sintonen@st.jyu.fi email account has been (and is atm) down. Sorry for that. Best way to reach me is to join #amigafin, #amycoders or #amiga on ircnet. - patchffs is freeware! Copyright © 1998 Harry "Piru" Sintonen.