Someone made a comment about a new version of the Minix file system
that supports 30-character file names, but I saw no announcements of
where to get the software or what to do.  Today I went hunting.
Everything is on tsx-11.  You need the 0.99pl7 kernel.  Source is in
pub/linux/sources/system/linux-0.99.7.tar.z, with diffs from pl6 in
linux-0.99.patch7.z.  (I used the diffs).

30-character names come with the Minix file system as of pl7, so when
you build the kernel, you shouldn't expect "make config" to ask
anything about 30-character names.  You get the capability if you say
you want Minix fs code.

You also need the newest mkfs and fsck.  You don't seem to need a new
mount, since mount thinks both 14 and 30-character Minix file systems
are simply Minix file systems.  The new mkfs and fsck are in
pub/linux/binaries/FSF/utile13.taz.

To get 30-character names, you must request it when you make a new
file system.  When you invoke mkfs, specify "mkfs -n30 <device>
<numblocks>".  That file system can now have names up to 30
characters.  You mount, unmount, and fsck it with no special options.
However I assume bad results would occur if you used the old version
of fsck with it.

I'd be curious for Linus to indicate what role he expects this file
system to play in comparison with the various extended file system
types currently in the kernel.  I tend to be conservative about
file systems -- I'd rather use the one Linus uses.  Can I assume
that he's using this rather than one of the new types?

By the way, given my choice I probably would have picked 40 rather
than 30.  While 30 should be good enough for just about everything, a
couple of the X man pages have names longer than 30 characters.  I
don't think any standard files have names longer than 40.