Dual Boot Harmony: Accessing Your Linux Drive From Windows
If you’re dual booting Windows and Linux you’re probably well aware of the number of tools available for browsing your Windows partition in Linux, but what’s not quite as simple is browsing your Linux partition in Windows, which is where Linux Reader comes in.
Linux Reader is a free Windows application that allows you read access to ext2 and ext3 formatted drives (your Linux partition). The software does a nice job of copying the look and feel Windows Explorer (XP), so you should feel right at home browsing through your Linux files. And of course Linux Reader can search through any Linux drive, not just a dual boot setup.
But of course read-only access isn’t going to cut it for everyone. If you need read and write support, you’ll want to look at a driver-based tool like Ext2 IFS, which provides full write access. Essentially Ext2 IFS is an ext2/ext3 filesystem driver for Windows, however the ext3 support comes by mounting the drive as ext2, which means you temporarily lose the journaling support in ext3.
The other thing to note about both of these options is that they totally disregard file permissions settings on your Linux partition, which means anyone mounting your drive has full access to /etc/passwd and other sensitive files. While that won’t be an issue for home users in trusted in environments, it does put a damper on network installations and other environments where strict access rights must be maintained.
Still, despite the lack of access control, both of these options look like easy ways to access your Linux drives in Windows. I had no problems mounting my Ubuntu partition in Windows XP using Linux Reader. I haven’t had a chance to test Ext2 IFS so if you have experience with it, be sure to let us know in the comments.
[via Lifehacker]
