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A problem deleting files from a decompressed squashfs collection

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  • 15-09-2014 5:40pm
    #1
    bonzodog2
    Registered Users Posts: 6,210 ✭✭✭


    I decompressed a squashfs filesystem from a live Linux image, onto a directory in a Windows NTFS volume. Using 'squashfs_tools-4.0-i686-cygwin' running in Windows. Uses about 9+GB. Shedloads of files! Deleting gives rise to many prompts asking for confirmation, due to some sharing issue. And the last 'time remaining' estimate was 40+days.

    Would it be quicker to do it from within Linux? Would it be safe?


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    #2
    ASX
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13 ✭ASX


    bonzodog2 wrote: »
    I decompressed a squashfs filesystem from a live Linux image, onto a directory in a Windows NTFS volume. Using 'squashfs_tools-4.0-i686-cygwin' running in Windows. Uses about 9+GB. Shedloads of files! Deleting gives rise to many prompts asking for confirmation, due to some sharing issue. And the last 'time remaining' estimate was 40+days.

    Would it be quicker to do it from within Linux? Would it be safe?

    Hi,
    first post, Greetings to all from Italy!

    Once you decompress the squashfs filesystem you end up with a subtree in a directory of your NTFS partition managed from windows.

    Using a Linux system you are going to have alternative filesystems either *nix* based like ext2,ext3,ext4,xfs,btrfs,raiserfs... or even FAT,NTFS.

    Would it be faster to delete lot of files using a Linux system and a *nix* filesystem ? from my experience yes, and safe too. Of course, you can easily realize the performance will depends on the specific filesystem used.

    Would it be faster if doing the same using a Linux system and a NTFS filesystem ? most likely not, while NTFS is supported from Linux, the performance aren't that good.

    ~~~

    Depending on what you are trying to do, Linux allow you to 'mount' and access the quashfs filesystem directly (decompressing in the fly) ... and from there you could copy only the files/subtree you need.


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    #3
    bonzodog2
    Registered Users Posts: 6,210 ✭✭✭bonzodog2


    Thanks, I've solved the problem from the Windows side already, of deleting 9+GB of files. What I wanted to do initially was insert some files into the squashfs file, which was mounted read only in the live linux distro. If I try it again I shall mount another copy RW. Would that work?


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    #4
    ASX
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13 ✭ASX


    Afraid, no. Squashfs is by definition a read-only filesystem and can only be mounted as read-only.


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    #5
    bonzodog2
    Registered Users Posts: 6,210 ✭✭✭bonzodog2


    OK. So if I mount one somewhere, copy the data somewhere else, add what I want, then make a new squashfs from the copy?


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    #6
    ASX
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13 ✭ASX


    Yes, that should easily work if done on a linux system.

    Most likely your squashfs filesystem image (if recent, as I'm supposing), has been made using a recent version of squashfs tools, now at version 4.3. Your cygwin version of squashfs tools seems to be quite outdated, so I would highly suggest to use squashfs tools natively on linux using a linux fs.

    Additionally you may encounter problems decompressing on NTFS, due to filesystem properties not fully compatible (or difficult to setup correctly) between a linux filesystem and NTFS filesystem. (permissions, file attributes, special files like pipes and device node, name encoding, case sensitivity, ...).


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