this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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[–] atx_aquarian 45 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (6 children)

Fun fact, though: Linux is the only case-sensitive one.

Edit: I feel silly for forgetting that it's all about the choice of FS. If anyone needs anything from me, I'll be in the corner, coloring.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

I once ran into a bug in an Arduino program where it wouldn't compile. The author blamed my "broken environment". Turned out, he had included "arduino.h" instead of the correct "Arduino.h".

[–] [email protected] 38 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

From a technical standpoint, the windows NTFS filesystem is designed inherently case sensitive, just windows doesn't allow creating case sensitive files.

Connecting an NTFS drive to linux, you can create two separate files readme.txt and Readme.txt.

Using windows, you can see both files in the filesystem, but chances are most (if not all) software will struggle accessing both files, opening readme.txt might instead open Readme.txt or vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago

For a few years now, Windows has had the capability of marking certain directories as case-sensitive. So you can have a mixed-case-sensitivity filesystem experience now. Yeah. :/

[–] riodoro1 13 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Such a microsoft thing to do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 14 minutes ago)

NTFS was designed back in the mid 90s, when the plan was to have the single NT kernel with different subsystems on top of it, some of those layers (e.g. POSIX) needed case sensitivity while others (Win32 and OS/2) didn't.

It only looks odd because the sole remaining subsystem in use (Win32) barely makes use of any of the kernel features, like they're only just now enabling long file paths.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Although you can use case insensitive filesystems with Linux, and case sensitive filesystems with macOS. I believe the case sensitivity is a function of the specific filesystem


but yeah, practically, the root for Linux is always case sensitive, and APFS ~~ain't~~ is only if you ask it to be ( https://support.apple.com/lv-lv/guide/disk-utility/dsku19ed921c/mac ).

[–] paperplane 10 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

When case insensitivity is the default I always wonder how many apps unknowingly rely on that due to typos somewhere. I encountered this once while porting a Windows/macOS app to Linux that someone imported a module with the wrong case and nobody noticed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

VS Codium did that at some point, it probably still does but I haven't checked

[–] ikidd 12 points 8 hours ago

As is right and proper.

[–] MooseTheDog 5 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

Least favorite part of linux honestly

[–] asdfasdfasdf 3 points 1 hour ago

Hard disagree. I don't understand why anyone would want case insensitive.

Am I the only one who doesn't go around mindlessly capitalizing letters? Do people find it too difficult to capitalize things?

Do you want case insensitive passwords too?

If I type X I mean X and only X. Uppercase letters are different letters, just like X and Y are different letters.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Case-insensitive filesystems are for maniacs. They are only causing trouble. Ever had two folders with the same name but different capitalization in windows? You see both, but whichever you click it will always open the same one, while the other can't be accessed. Psychopath behavior.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

That's because NTFS isn't case-insensitive. If it was there'd be no two folders. Windows is a case-insensitive operating system running on a case-sensitive file system. It's pretty clear Microsoft wanted case sensitivity and then realised how much legacy software that'd break.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Makes changing the case of a file/folder a lot easier though. Windows you have to rename it to something else then rename it again just to change case but Linux you can just...rename it. It's a small thing but it's something

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

is this bug really impossible to fix just because the file system is case insensitive?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

You can turn it off, at least for ext4: https://lwn.net/Articles/784041/

[–] SmoothLiquidation 5 points 8 hours ago

On MacOS you get a choice when you format the drive.