Read access to linuxfs, rootfs and initrd.gz from Windows

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thomasl
Posts: 414
Joined: Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:26 am

Read access to linuxfs, rootfs and initrd.gz from Windows

#1 Post by thomasl »

(I had already posted something similar in the MX Help area a while ago. Now expanded with initrd.gz.)

This is for those who dual-boot a frugal MX and various versions of Windows. The Windows versions of 7z and 7zFM can open and access linuxfs (in squashfs format), the root persistence file rootfs (ext format, probably homefs works as well though I have not tested this) and also initrd.gz. The latter needs two steps: first unpack initrd.gz into initrd and then feed initrd (cpio format) into 7z. (And 7z and 7zFM are also very useful for ISO and VDI/VHD work as I have just found out.)

So if you just want a quick peek into a file or check something, no need to boot into MX. Writing to these files is not possible from Windows: 7z doesn't support these formats for writing as the following excerpt from the 7z website shows.

Code: Select all

Supported formats:
    Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
    Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z.
Frugal installs on Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Ryzen 5 4650U/24GB * HP Pavilion Ryzen 3 3300U/16GB * Toshiba R950 i5-3340M/12GB
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Adrian
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Re: Read access to linuxfs, rootfs and initrd.gz from Windows

#2 Post by Adrian »

That's pretty cool, didn't know it's possible, I like 7zip a lot.

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m_pav
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Re: Read access to linuxfs, rootfs and initrd.gz from Windows

#3 Post by m_pav »

Neither, good find. When I'm forced into a windows environment, such as at work, I refuse to use their tools for compression/decompression, I only use 7-Zip.
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thomasl
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Re: Read access to linuxfs, rootfs and initrd.gz from Windows

#4 Post by thomasl »

And it keeps getting better. I have just discovered that both 7z and 7zFM can also access physical drives formatted as ext2/3/4, say on a USB stick or HD (MS has never seen fit to include a filesystem driver for that in Windows... shame on them).

Code: Select all

7zFM \\.\
gives a window with all drives, including all physical drives and

Code: Select all

7zFM \\.\PhysicalDrive2
opens that drive for read access, which can be an ext4 volume as the attached image shows.
p2.png
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Frugal installs on Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Ryzen 5 4650U/24GB * HP Pavilion Ryzen 3 3300U/16GB * Toshiba R950 i5-3340M/12GB
I have a reservation... What do you mean it's not in the COMPUTER!

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