>We like to give away some software on CD and for that we like to use
>some db, postgres would be fine. We know that it will only run on w2k
>and XP (and that is ok), but many home user installations still have
>FAT32 partitions. Everthing runs on FAT32, but postgres not. And for
>shure most home users will not know how to convert fat32 to
>ntfs nor do
>that, cause they see no reason.
>And I'm surprised that some functions will not work in postgres on
>fat32. What is the reason?
>I know fat32 is less security and on real servers I will always use
>ntfs, but for this cd software I can not say, yuo must use ntfs :-(
Specifically, FAT32 does not support Directory Junctions, which means
tablespaces don't work. That's the only filesystem specific function
that is used directly. (security and reliability are of course used
indirectly)
That said, you *can* run pg on FAT32, it's just not recommended. The
installer won't let you. But if you install just the files (you can do
this from the installer, just don't enable service or initdb) and run it
manually, it should work.
Beware that no testing is done on FAT. And don't expect your data to be
around if the machine crashes. Right now I think only tablespaces won't
work, but if other features don't work, don't expect anybody to put down
a lot of effort to make a workaround for FAT.
//Magnus