Samsung forum: UE40D7000 - Wd- 3TB

Nice to read but

by R. Proffitt - 11/19/12 11:10 AM

In Reply to: Activate EFI in special partitions for linux kernel by maromo1961

Who said they are using Linux? There were a few models with that core OS but as you can guess UEFI or EFI carries a license fee so makers may avoid this for years if they can.
Bob

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We are talking about EFI/GPT (GUID partition table).

by maromo1961 - 11/20/12 5:15 AM

In Reply to: Nice to read but by R. Proffitt

Maybe, I haven't explained very well my question/demand.

There is no license fee for supporting EFI/GPT tables on hdd drives as a substitute for MBR tables. That support is a Intel standard implemented in GPL linux kernels since the change of millenium as well as in OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

Then, Bob, what are you talking about? We are talking about using bigger than 2TB usb disks at full capacity. That's all. To do that the clearest alternative is to give support to EFI/GPT partition tables. This is what is achieved in a linux kernel in a basic system by configuring the kernel with CONFIGURE_EFI_PARTITION=y. Despite the name this means support for GPT tables, amongst other things.

EFI/GPT is a standard to go beyond the limitations of 32-bit partitions using MBR.

The problem with Samsung is that everything about its firmwares seems to be mysterious. As an example, many people think that their usb hdd's and pen-drives are broken because nobody tells them that formating them with their UE40D7000 TV puts an XFS filesytem in them. Of course, many of them do not have support for the XFS filesystem in their MS Windows boxes (they do not have something like GPL Crossmeta, for example). This support for reading and, the most important, writing for the XFS filesystem made me suspect that they were using a Linux kernel. Were Samsung violating the GPL license is not my problem and I suppose not yours; in any case, this wouldn't have anything to do with paying any license fee.

Anyway, the main question is that activating GPT support shouldn't be hard, even without using a Linux kernel, because we must take into account that we are not trying to boot any system from the USB hard drive porting the GPT table. This is the important point, I repeat it: we are not trying to boot from a GPT partitioned usb disk, we only want to use its full capacity.

If a very old Siemens Gigaset m740 can do it, why not our "SmartTV" from Samsung ?

I own two Samsung TV's: UE37D5000 and UE40D7000 and I only expect being of some help in order to address this issue properly.

Miguel

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I hear you.

by R. Proffitt - 11/20/12 9:04 AM

In Reply to: We are talking about EFI/GPT (GUID partition table). by maromo1961

Keep posting and asking for support. For now we know to avoid the USB 3.0 drives.

If you want to get closer to Samsung developers, join the team at the next link.
http://developer.samsung.com/home.do

You can get a lot more insight if you develop on their platforms. I will not reveal all that I am doing at the office so I'm going to remain a little mysterious as well.
Bob

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