exFAT set up on Ubuntu

Following on from my previous post, I wanted to check drives would mount on Ubuntu. My server isn't fixed yet, so in the meantime I used an Acer Aspire notebook running Ubuntu.

The steps here worked for me, basically

1. Add the repository: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:relan/exfat
2. Update the package list: sudo apt-get update
3. Install the exfat package: sudo apt-get install fuse-exfat
4. Create the mount folder: sudo mkdir /media/exfat
5. Mount the filesystem (replace sdc1 with your exfat partition): sudo mount -t exfat /dev/sdc1 /media/exfat
6. Read and write to /media/exfat to your heart's desire.
7. When you are done, unmount the filesystem: sudo umount /media/exfat

Then I wanted to compare the contents of drives. The command line answer is

diff -qr dir1 dir2 | sort

but in typical fashion I forgot how to make the pipe symbol appear. However, there is a graphical frontend that will tell me what I need to know - it's called Meld.

sudo apt-get install meld
meld dir1 dir2

That worked just fine.

So now all the drives are formatted as exFAT so should be far more interchangeable. And with my new Smart Router coming from BT, with its USB slot, I may just plug one of them in there for access by all.