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The original was posted on /r/opensource by /u/waeph4 on 2023-09-04 13:41:24.

Hi everyone!

I just released my first mid-scale open-source project today, and I wanted to share it with you and hear your thoughts!

Linsk is a first-of-its-kind tool that allows access to any Linux-native file systems on Windows and macOS, including LUKS and LVM (a killer feature). It originally started as a personal project for me as I wanted to have a truly cross-platform encryption for my external HDD. With time, I realized the potential this project has, and later, I decided to open-source it.

There are a few existing solutions aiming to do the “same”, like the famous Paragon software and other FUSE-based drivers with dubious quality. But all of these existing solutions have typically served as stopgaps, catering to users who occasionally access data on external drives with Linux file systems. These tools imply that the user has another Linux computer that acts as a “host” for a specific drive with a Linux file system. There is no way to format drives with Linux file systems using these tools, nor is there a way to access tools like fsck. And in addition to that, there is no support for advanced device mappers like LVM and LUKS whatsoever. But things change today.

Meet Linsk—a utility that allows you to use any Linux file system on unsupported operating systems such as Windows and macOS without compromising the rich tooling Linux has. Unlike the utilities I criticized in the section above, Linsk seeks to address these shortcomings by wrapping around a lightweight Alpine Linux VM (130 MB only), exposing files through an ephemeral on-demand network share. Linsk does not try to re-implement any file systems, making it the first of its kind. This approach allows the use of native Linux drivers, guaranteeing that everything will work in a reliable and predictable manner, similarly to how it does on Linux itself. Anything that works on Linux will work under Linsk too (hence the Linux+Disk name).

GitHub link:

Thanks for taking a minute to read this :)