xref: /linux/Documentation/filesystems/befs.rst (revision b77e0ce62d63a761ffb7f7245a215a49f5921c2f)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3=========================
4BeOS filesystem for Linux
5=========================
6
7Document last updated: Dec 6, 2001
8
9Warning
10=======
11Make sure you understand that this is alpha software.  This means that the
12implementation is neither complete nor well-tested.
13
14I DISCLAIM ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY POSSIBLE BAD EFFECTS OF THIS CODE!
15
16License
17=======
18This software is covered by the GNU General Public License.
19See the file COPYING for the complete text of the license.
20Or the GNU website: <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html>
21
22Author
23======
24The largest part of the code written by Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>
25He has been working on the code since Aug 13, 2001. See the changelog for
26details.
27
28Original Author: Makoto Kato <m_kato@ga2.so-net.ne.jp>
29
30His original code can still be found at:
31<http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA008030/bfs/>
32
33Does anyone know of a more current email address for Makoto? He doesn't
34respond to the address given above...
35
36This filesystem doesn't have a maintainer.
37
38What is this Driver?
39====================
40This module implements the native filesystem of BeOS http://www.beincorporated.com/
41for the linux 2.4.1 and later kernels. Currently it is a read-only
42implementation.
43
44Which is it, BFS or BEFS?
45=========================
46Be, Inc said, "BeOS Filesystem is officially called BFS, not BeFS".
47But Unixware Boot Filesystem is called bfs, too. And they are already in
48the kernel. Because of this naming conflict, on Linux the BeOS
49filesystem is called befs.
50
51How to Install
52==============
53step 1.  Install the BeFS  patch into the source code tree of linux.
54
55Apply the patchfile to your kernel source tree.
56Assuming that your kernel source is in /foo/bar/linux and the patchfile
57is called patch-befs-xxx, you would do the following:
58
59	cd /foo/bar/linux
60	patch -p1 < /path/to/patch-befs-xxx
61
62if the patching step fails (i.e. there are rejected hunks), you can try to
63figure it out yourself (it shouldn't be hard), or mail the maintainer
64(Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>) for help.
65
66step 2.  Configuration & make kernel
67
68The linux kernel has many compile-time options. Most of them are beyond the
69scope of this document. I suggest the Kernel-HOWTO document as a good general
70reference on this topic. http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Kernel-HOWTO-4.html
71
72However, to use the BeFS module, you must enable it at configure time::
73
74	cd /foo/bar/linux
75	make menuconfig (or xconfig)
76
77The BeFS module is not a standard part of the linux kernel, so you must first
78enable support for experimental code under the "Code maturity level" menu.
79
80Then, under the "Filesystems" menu will be an option called "BeFS
81filesystem (experimental)", or something like that. Enable that option
82(it is fine to make it a module).
83
84Save your kernel configuration and then build your kernel.
85
86step 3.  Install
87
88See the kernel howto <http://www.linux.com/howto/Kernel-HOWTO.html> for
89instructions on this critical step.
90
91Using BFS
92=========
93To use the BeOS filesystem, use filesystem type 'befs'.
94
95ex::
96
97    mount -t befs /dev/fd0 /beos
98
99Mount Options
100=============
101
102=============  ===========================================================
103uid=nnn        All files in the partition will be owned by user id nnn.
104gid=nnn	       All files in the partition will be in group nnn.
105iocharset=xxx  Use xxx as the name of the NLS translation table.
106debug          The driver will output debugging information to the syslog.
107=============  ===========================================================
108
109How to Get Lastest Version
110==========================
111
112The latest version is currently available at:
113<http://befs-driver.sourceforge.net/>
114
115Any Known Bugs?
116===============
117As of Jan 20, 2002:
118
119	None
120
121Special Thanks
122==============
123Dominic Giampalo ... Writing "Practical file system design with Be filesystem"
124
125Hiroyuki Yamada  ... Testing LinuxPPC.
126
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