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I have read that support for the exfat filesystem has been incorporated in the Linux kernel since kernel ver 5.4 was released in late 2019 - early 2020. I'm confused about what this means wrt the exfat-fuse package. AFAIK, the exfat-fuse package existed prior to kernel ver 5.4, and was the ad-hoc method for mounting exfat partitions.

Does incorporation of support for exfat filesystems mean that the exfat-fuse package is no longer required? Conversely, if exfat-fuse is still required, what was meant/accomplished by incorporating exfat support in the kernel?

A related question is wrt the documentation for this - specifically man mount, and its FILESYSTEM-SPECIFIC MOUNT OPTIONS section. There is no mention of a filesystem-specific manual for exfat, nor is there a "Mount options for exfat" sub-section. Which leads me to ask, "Where are these mount options for exfat covered?" Should users rely upon the "Mount options for fat" sub-section in man mount, or should they rely upon man mount.exfat-fuse, or on something else?

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  • unix.stackexchange.com/a/759982/70524 and also manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lunar/en/man8/mkfs.exfat.8.html Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 4:31
  • @muru: wrt the U&L SE Q&A referenced: I read this during my research, but it doesn't answer my questions. How do you figure it does? wrt the other link for. manpages, I don't get that at all - you've lost me I'm afraid. Care to expound?? Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 5:09
  • You don't need to use exfat-fuse for mounting anymore, now there's just exfat (provided by the mount.exfat userspace helper from the exfatprogs package for the kernel driver). This much is plain from the linked answer. The manpage is for that helper. It describes what's usable with mount -t exfat. Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 5:29
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    Ah, sorry, I linked to the wrong manpage. Looks like (a) no userspace helper is needed at all, a plain mount -t exfat works fine without installing anything if the kernel driver is enabled, and (b) looks like it isn't documented much at all. There doesn't seem to be any changes made to util-linux (which provides mount and its manpage) accompanying this driver. Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 6:41
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    Seems like the only readable list of supported options is the struct fs_parameter_spec exfat_parameters object Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 6:48

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Fuse was added on 2005-09-09, that's probably Linux ~2.6.18, far earlier than Linux 5.4

Does incorporation of support for exfat filesystems mean that the exfat-fuse package is no longer required?

Both can be used but exfat-fuse has essentially been deprecated and superseded.

There is no mention of a filesystem-specific manual for exfat, nor is there a "Mount options for exfat" sub-section.

The man pages are not always kept in sync with what the kernel contains. There's a separate team maintaining them.

Should users rely upon the "Mount options for fat" sub-section in man mount, or should they rely upon man mount.exfat-fuse, or on something else?

Mount options for fuse-exfat and the kernel native exfat driver are not related. They can be similar/the same but that's just happenstance.

You think of these projects as similar/related while they are only similar in name and functionality. Code bases are different and written by different people.

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  • "You think of these projects as similar/related while they are only similar in name and functionality." Yes, I do think of them that way. Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 4:49

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