Using exfat formatted partitions / drives on ubuntu (linux)

Let's get started right away: Why would someone use exFat to format external drives (yeah never use it to format an internal HD, use NTFS or ext). So here's why (by wikipedia)

exFAT can be used where the NTFS file system is not a feasible solution, due to data structure overhead, or where the file size or directory restrictions of previous versions of the FAT file system are unacceptable.

Ok I want a fs that doesn't have the security features of NTFS and one which has overcome the 4 GB file size limitation of FAT32. Yeah there's a file size limitation in FAT32 - you won't be able to copy a file bigger than 4 GB to your FAT32 harddisk, in other words, you'd have to split HD movies / videos.

Ok enough rambling, here we go - how to use exfat READONLY (you won't find write support as of May 2010) on ubuntu:

1. Download this gem, a deb made by bluehappybyte. It's source code can be found here on launchpad.
2. Install the .deb file or compile the source.

Now you're ready to read from exfat, but remember, you won't be able to write to it. Also Ubuntu won't automount exfat partitions, you'll have to do it by yourself (either write a script or do it on the go), here's how to mount a exfat partition with the above driver installed (run the command in your terminal or from a script - whatever):

sudo mount -t exfat /dev/[device] /home/[user]/Desktop/Mountpoint