Lingua franca file system Linux-NetBSD-FreeBSD?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6727%bellsouth.net@localhost>]

What is the best choice for a file system that can be read, and safely written 
to, by Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD? 

With NetBSD through 5.1_RC3, I got "unsupported inode size" when trying to 
mount Linux ext2fs partition from NetBSD.

With FreeBSD through 7.2, I could mount, but got "Bad file descriptor" when 
trying to access the Linux partition.  With FreeBSD 8.0, I could mount and read 
the Linux partition, but in the only attempt to write to the ext2fs partition, 
I was editing a file with vi, and when I tried to write (save), the file was 
truncated.  I was able to recover by saving to FreeBSD file system and copying 
to msdos (FAT32) partition and subsequently copying to the Linux partition 
(this was a nonbootable USB stick used for data rather than Linux 
installation).  I haven't tried under FreeBSD 8.1 yet.

Would I have better luck using newfs_ext2fs from NetBSD or FreeBSD and possibly 
getting a flavor of ext2fs more to BSD's liking?  This would be for data as 
opposed to Linux installation.

There is the obvious possibility of using msdos (FAT32); I could run FreeDOS on 
such a partition as well as using the partition to share data between Linux, 
NetBSD and FreeBSD, and FreeDOS too.  Drawback is some problems getting long 
file names straight, and lack of case sensitivity.  But maybe FAT32 is the 
safest choice?

Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD are supposed to be able to read and write NTFS 
partition, but I see from a very recent thread on 
freebsd-questions%freebsd.org@localhost list, subject "Re: External HD", that 
writing to NTFS partition is very dangerous, and I figure that would be also 
true for NetBSD and Linux, and any other non-MS-Windows-NT-line OS that might 
have support for NTFS. 

There is also the caveat that such a data-sharing partition would have to be in 
a primary or extended/logical slice/partition, since Linux seems unable to read 
BSD disklabels, and NetBSD and FreeBSD can't read each other's disklabels.  
Also, Linux and the BSDs go separate ways with some newer file systems (ext4fs, 
btrfs, jfs in Linux; zfs in FreeBSD).

Tom