rdri

You aren't addressing what I've said. But that's expected. No need to spend more of your time.

You want unlimited filename length??

No. But a limit at least better than Windows has to offer would help a lot (already because switching is a common thing and should be made breeze for everyone). And 256 bytes is bad no matter how you look at it.

Skills+time, or money to pay someone with the skills, that's what is needed.

No, that's not needed I think. Some file systems supported by Linux already support longer names, it's Linux VFS that is limiting them. This is an artificial limit basically. It will be changed eventually, I only say that it's long overdue already.

I assume you know of Stream's Proton and just Wine.

I assume you know it wasn't always like that. Surely a lot of Linux developers never thought it was a good idea to support many more windows-related systems (one could say it would be implemented if it was a big issue), but here we are.

You aren't getting it.

It's not about bricking, it's about relying on "standards" (limitations actually) that should be obsolete in 2024, in multinational technology world. About the fact that they are effectively limiting how people from all around the world can use characters, words, names etc. anywhere.

It's not about money, not about patches or developing them. It's about what users expect. They surely don't expect to be told "fix it yourself if you don't like".

This is by no means a "big" issue because it affects less than 1 percent of users, sure. Not many people hit the NTFS limit on windows either, yet you can see thousands places where people discuss that long paths setting, people who need to overcome it, people who maybe even grateful that such an option appeared in later windows versions.

It filename, not filesentence.

😒 Yep, that's useless. What's next, "hey Linux doesn't support .exe, those are games for windows so you play them on windows"?

clearly isn't as big an issue as you feel or it would be fixed.

I might have agreed with such statements 20 years ago. But not anymore. I can't count the times I've seen how certain software, game, system or a service literally brick themselves when a use case involves using non-ascii, non-english or non-unicode characters, paths or regions. Not Linux related only or specifically, but almost always it looks and feels embarrassing. I've seen some related global improvements in windows, NTFS, and some products, but all that is still not enough in my opinion. The thought that people shouldn't need >255 bytes (or symbols) sounds not different from that 640k ram quote.

Does it look like I advocate for windows? Nah.

Open source is great when it works. "If there is some good patch..." and "Enough pressure and maybe..." is the sad reality of it. Why would people need to put pressure on order for Linux to start supporting features long available in file systems it supports? Why would I, specifically, should spend time on it? Does Linux want to become an os for everyone or only for people experimenting with dangerous stuff that make them lose data sometimes?

Don't get me wrong, Linux is good even now. But there is no need to actively deny points of possible improvement. When they ask you how great XFS is compared to others you shouldn't throw "exbibytes" word, you should first think what problems people might have with it, especially if they want to switch from windows.

If you setup a new install, and say you want encryption, LUKS is what you get.

And if I want to only encrypt some files? I need to create a volume specifically for that, right? Or I could just use something else.

The magic of Linux, is you can try it yourself, run your own fork and submit patches.

Well it should probably go further and offer more of another kind of magic - where stuff works as user expects it to work.

As for submitting patches, it sounds like you suggest people play around and touch core parts responsible for file system operations. Such an advice is not going to work for everyone. Open source software is not ideal. It can be ideal in theory, but that's it.

LUKS is the one to talk about as the others aren't as good an approach in general. LUKS is the recommended approach.

It looks like there are enough use cases where some people would not prefer LUKS.

None of that helps or discards anything I've said above. But it allows to say that NTFS limit can be basically 1024 bytes. Just because you like what UTF-8 offers it doesn't solve hurdles with Linux limits.

LUKS is commonly used but not the only one.

I guess something like ようこそ『追放者ギルド』へ ～無能なＳランクパーティがどんどん有能な冒険者を追放するので、最弱を集めて最強ギルドを創ります～ 1 (ドラゴンコミックスエイジ) - 荒木 佑輔.epub - 92 characters, but 246 bytes. Where on Windows this file hits 35% of the limit, on Linux it hits 96%.

The file is not some rare case. It's from a torrent, uploaded somewhere just today. There are tons of files like this with slightly or much longer names. As of 2024, they can't be served by Linux. Not in a pure file form, that is.

NTFS also has a 255 limit, but it’s UTF16, so for unicode, you will get more out of it.

I think this is a biased way of putting it. NTFS way is easy to understand and therefore manage. What's more important is that ASCII basically means English only. I've seen enough of such "discrimination" (stuff breaks etc.) based on used language in software/technology and it should end for good.

All other modernly maintained OS do UTF8, which “won” unicode.

UTF8 is Unicode. UTF8 symbols can take more than 1 byte.

Plus all the other things Linux has over Windows of course.

There are also encryption methods that slash maximum length of each filename even further.

True. Problem is, moving from more restricted system to less restricted system is a breeze, but painful otherwise. Linux is in a position where it would benefit from any little thing. People trying to switch to Linux will find path length feels like an upgrade, but file name limitation is clearly a downgrade.

Linux file system is shit? Otherwise I don't get why you've used the "because" word. NTFS is certainly not shit.

Linux still unable to catch up with NTFS when it comes to filename length, sadly. 256 bytes in an era of Unicode is ridiculous.