BeOS filesystem for Linux

Document last updated: Dec 6, 2001

Warning

Make sure you understand that this is alpha software. This means that the implementation is neither complete nor well-tested.

I DISCLAIM ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY POSSIBLE BAD EFFECTS OF THIS CODE!

License

This software is covered by the GNU General Public License.
See the file COPYING for the complete text of the license.
Or the GNU website: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html

Author

The largest part of the code written by Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>.
He has been working on the code since Aug 13, 2001. See the changelog for details.

Original Author: Makoto Kato <m_kato@ga2.so-net.ne.jp>

His original code can still be found at:
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA008030/bfs/

Does anyone know of a more current email address for Makoto? He doesn't respond to the address given above...

This filesystem doesn't have a maintainer.

What is this Driver?

This module implements the native filesystem of BeOS (http://www.beincorporated.com/) for the Linux 2.4.1 and later kernels. Currently it is a read-only implementation.

Which is it, BFS or BEFS?

Be, Inc said, “BeOS Filesystem is officially called BFS, not BeFS”. But Unixware Boot Filesystem is called bfs, too, and it already exists in the kernel. Because of this naming conflict, on Linux the BeOS filesystem is called befs.

How to Install

Step 1: Install the BeFS patch

Apply the patchfile to your kernel source tree. Assuming that your kernel source is in /foo/bar/linux and the patchfile is called patch-befs-xxx: 

cd /foo/bar/linux
patch -p1 < /path/to/patch-befs-xxx

If patching fails (rejected hunks), try resolving it yourself or mail the maintainer (Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>).

Step 2: Configuration & make kernel

The Linux kernel has many compile-time options. For general guidance, see the Kernel-HOWTO: http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Kernel-HOWTO-4.html

To enable BeFS: 

cd /foo/bar/linux
make menuconfig

Enable experimental code under Code maturity level options, then enable BeFS filesystem (experimental) under Filesystems. You may build it as a module.

Step 3: Install

See the kernel HOWTO: http://www.linux.com/howto/Kernel-HOWTO.html

Using BFS

To use the BeOS filesystem, specify filesystem type befs. 

mount -t befs /dev/fd0 /beos

Mount Options

Option Description
uid=nnn All files will be owned by user ID nnn.
gid=nnn All files will belong to group ID nnn.
iocharset=xxx Name of the NLS translation table.
debug Output debugging information to syslog.

How to Get Latest Version

The latest version is available at:
http://befs-driver.sourceforge.net/

Any Known Bugs?

As of Jan 20, 2002: None

Special Thanks