NTFS, fat32, exfat, could I theoretically create my own filesystem? If so would my computer even be able to work with most files or connect to other devices?
This is why I love Lemmy, I can ask this obscure, unrealistic question, and people will still answer it with the “yeah you probably shouldn’t but here’s how you could”
Yes you can but be careful to not turn into a murderer on the way.
Best i can do is cereal killer. Nom nom nom
Yes, you can design your own filesystem format and make a driver for that and use it on your computer
It would be insanity, but you could.
Basically: Filesystems are hard to make. Really really hard.
Yeah take a look at TempleOS and it’s filesystem RedSea.
TempleOS is a rabbit hole in of itself, RIP Terry.
Building a filesystem essentially means linking a directory of filenames to physical blocks and handling CRUD operations. It’s not that hard. The hard part comes when you go beyond the basics to build something efficient with useful features. For example, fast access, journaling and fragmentation are all challenging topics. You can try without messing with the kernel by creating an in-memory filesystem (essentially a block of RAM) and playing with the I/O.
NTFS, fat32, exfat, could I theoretically create my own filesystem?
Yes. There are many different file systems and you can absolutely create your own. Making one that is reliable and performs well, and/or is something you can actually use for the disk that you boot from, generally involves low-level kernel programming and years of work - and is not exactly a beginner’s programming project.
However, you can also more easily play with implementing filesystems in a high-level language using FUSE.
If so would my computer even be able to work with most files or connect to other devices?
Your computer can use many different filesystems at the same time. You can also store a filesystem in a file on another filesystem, rather than dedicating a partition of a physical disk to it. So, yes, you can use a filesystem of your own design at the same time you are using other storage devices formatted with more common filesystems.
Anything can be a hard drive if you are creative enough.
I prefer to save a .jxl to a bird
That’s how those filesystems came into existence: someone designed them.
Yes, you can write your own filesystem, and use it on your own drives.
Yes, you will continue to be able to use other filesystems, unless you intentionally remove them from the system.
Look up reiserfs.
You can do anything if you put your mind to it.
Like murder your estranged wife and watch support for your FS collapse, right?
Did I stutter?
Lots of good answers, especially using FUSE for experimentation. One thing I’ll add is that if you just didn’t want to use any filesystem at all … you don’t have to!
At least in the Unix realm, a disk drive is just a bunch of contiguous blocks, and you can put whatever you want in them. Of course, Unix itself famously needs a filesystem for itself, but if you want to just store all your giant binary blobs – cryptocurrency block chain? – directly onto a drive without the pesky overhead or conveniences of a filesystem, that’s doable.
It’s not generally a useful idea to treat a disk drive as though it’s a tape drive, but it does work. And going further into that analogy, you can use “tar” to collect multiple files and fit them onto the drive, since a tarball preserves file metadata and the borders between files, but not much else. This is the original use of tar – “tape archive” – for storing Unix files onto tape, because the thought of using tape as working storage with a filesystem was – and still is – a terrible idea. And that’s basically the original impetus for a filesystem: it’s better than linear access media.
Yes, but it would probably be a multi-decade, career-defining project if you want it to be any good. It would likely work with all files since it’s all just data once you get to the FS level anyway, but other devices would need an appropriate driver (that you would also need to write) in order to use it.
Note that I’m not an expert in this field, so others should correct me if I’ve got something wrong here.
Also, once you finish your filesystem, don’t murder your wife or otherwise people will stop using it.
Actually there are technical reasons for it being removed from the kernel, reiserfs does not account for the year 2038 problem
Oh don’t worry, knowing me, I would create it, use it for a single drive and never touch it again. Its the fun of creation that counts. Also, I quite like my wife.
Doesn’t have to be world changing or even practical. A project like that would still teach you a ton about storage hardware, how file systems work, programming, mathematics etc. Some of these lessons could even be useful, but above all, a project like this should be fun and interesting.
Why do you think people install Linux and run Doom on all the weirdest hardware they can find. This is the spirit that drives innovation.
Don’t let expectations hold you back. Make your own FS, and have fun.
I do think it would be fun, I would also love to just have a bit of tech that is “all my own” in a way
Besides, having your own FS is pretty bad ass in the same way as running Linux From Scratch.
Yeah you could. Noone else
couldwould bother to use your usb/hdd/ssd with your file system unless you gave them the drivers.Yes you can, for example here is how to use internet pings as a file system:
yarrick/pingfs: Stores your data in ICMP ping packets https://github.com/yarrick/pingfs
I would really appreciate it if you could provide a different link.
Whoops here you go https://github.com/yarrick/pingfs
People have and do, but the effort is ridiculous and requires some very high-level computer science or computer engineering skills.
If you just want to do it for the fuck of it look at how old simple filesystems like FAT12 work and implement them in whatever high-level programming language you’re most comfortable, maybe with FUSE as others have suggested since there are beginner-level tutorials for that.