Ext4 support?

[kiuKisas]

Hi, thank you for this projet!
I wanted to ask if a Ext4 support is plan and if I can help with that ? In a dual boot with Linux cenario, even if btrfs is already a good alternative to ntfs.

[leo60228]

The bootloader supports all filesystems with EFI drivers. I'm not sure if they have to support writes. If not, rEFInd includes a collection of several RO EFI filesystem drivers, including ext4.
The bigger issue is Windows support, not bootloader support. If there is an ext4 driver for Windows anywhere near as complete as WinBtrfs, I'm not aware of it.

[leo60228]

Note that ReactOS includes an incomplete ext4 driver that can be booted from with some patches to other parts of the system. As ReactOS's btrfs driver is a port of WinBtrfs, perhaps the reverse could be done?

[leo60228]

Ah, there's https://github.com/matt-wu/Ext3Fsd which has complete support for ext2 and partial support for ext3/ext4. I'm not sure if even ext2 supports enough Windows features to boot from, though. You could try it with an ext2 filesystem and rEFInd's ext2 driver?

[maharmstone]

@leo60228 is correct. Booting from ext4 might well work already, but the issues are whether the EFI driver is good enough (which it probably is), and whether the Windows driver is good enough (which it probably isn't).

@leo60228 - calling ReactOS's version of my driver a "port" is stretching it a bit - they've just commented out bits of the code that don't work yet on their system.

[OLuserGi]

Hello!
I want install my Windows 11 for test into EXT4 base partition or into vDISK.vhdx, which save into EXT4 base partition.
I do this:

HDD 120GB = 2 GB FAT16 + 109,6 GB EXT4 base partition;
Save vDISK.vhdx 100 GB NTFS to 109,6 GB EXT4 base partition;
Save bootmgr.efi into 2 GB FAT16;
I need 4) mount EXT4 base partition (driver ext4_x64.efi) over BCD and bootmgr.efi;
Mount vDISK.vhdx 100 GB NTFS over BCD and bootmgr.efi;
Install Windows to vDISK.vhdx.
Now I have work OS Windows 11 on vDISK.vhdx into NTFS base partition. This work. I want use EXT4 base partition.

Can you help me?

I am write about this problem in "ext2fsd"

[maharmstone]

Windows 11 isn't yet supported.

[Neo-Desktop]

here's a complete EXT4 driver for windows:
https://github.com/bobranten/Ext4Fsd