OSX To Feature Portable User Accounts?

eldavojohn writes "A new patent filed by Apple is causing speculation that OSX is soon to receive a new feature. From the article: '[the patent states] that the user account may be stored alongside general data storage or "other functionality". All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"

Comments

Ultra portable

[BWJones]

So, ideally this would be part of a uber road warrior ultraportable solution rather than an addition to a USB drive or iPod. Since the demise of the 12in Powerbook G4, many of us have had to shlep around larger form factors (15in Powerbooks/Macbook Pros) that are a bit harder to deal with on planes, trains and such.

I would hope for a little tablet much like the Newton, but running a full version of OS X and given the costs of flash drives, this may in fact be possible at 32 to 64GBs in size which would make for a usable battery life as well. Travel is difficult enough and for really long flights (international ones), battery life simply does not cut it, even with the new MacBooks. And even if you did have a power outlet in your seat, they are incompatible with the current magnetic and oh so cool MacBook power systems.

Having something like this that one could back up photographs to, give talks from, check email and calendar and address books, read ebooks and mark up pdf documents, be able to link via Bluetooth to your cellular phone and such would all be possible in a small form factor that one would not necessarily want/need the ability to run big apps like Photoshop on.

And when the trip is over, you plug into your desktop at home and automagically have everything sync up.

Oh, please... oh, please... oh, please.... Come on Steve! You and I have talked about this going back..... what, years now! The technology is there, the market is there, all the pieces are in place.

Re:Ultra portable

[Tibor the Hun]

Considering how much progress they've made with Portable Home Directories, I'd imagine something like this wouldn't be too great of a stretch.

Re:Ultra portable

[mrchaotica]

I would hope for a little tablet much like the Newton, but running a full version of OS X and given the costs of flash drives, this may in fact be possible at 32 to 64GBs in size which would make for a usable battery life as well.

I would hope for a 10-12" (~2lb) convertible tablet, much like a cross between the Thinkpad X-series and the old Sharp Actius MM-10 (it had a dock!).

But most importantly, I want well-supported syncing between systems. I've got two Macs now (an iBook and an iMac), and it's absurd that iSync is useless for them. In fact, syncing anything with iSync fails to work properly: I can't use either my iPod or my Palm PDA conveniently because although it syncs events, the categories, locations, and notes are lost!

Re:Ultra portable

[Brome]

Link it to your cell phone ? Just add GSM/GPRS capabilities to it, and it won't have to connect to your cell phone, it will BE your cell phone.

Re:Ultra portable

[500HP]

Great idea....and we'll call it InfoCard.

Next/.

Re:Ultra portable

[Mac Degger]

It's been in the cards for a while...the idea isn't new (hell, even I've discussed it on- and offline many a time). How they could get a patent on this is beyond me, for all the examples in books, magazines and on the 'net.

Re:Ultra portable

[HeyMe]

For Windows XP users: MojoPac

More prior art?

Re:Ultra portable

[arminw]

......But most importantly, I want well-supported syncing between systems. I've got two Macs now (an iBook and an iMac),.....

I have been doing this kind of thing for at least two years now, using a program called "Foldersynchronizer". I connect my G4 PB as a disk drive (hold the "T" key at startup) to the desktop G5 and synchronize the two needed user folders. When I get back from a trip, a second sync run from the PB to the G5 has all my changes done on the trip back on the desktop G5. The PB serves as a handy backup device whenever I'm not traveling. Sometimes I have to change the "location" setting for the Network although the normal "automatic" settings work almost everywhere.

Re:Ultra portable

[mrchaotica]

First of all, how does it resolve conflicts (i.e., act appropriately when the file was independently changed on both machines)? Second, I would rather be able to sync spcific stuff (i.e. be able to NOT sync my X GB of video to the laptop, since its hard drive isn't big enough) and I'd like the program to do more sophisticated stuff with things like iCal appointments and such.

Also, I don't want to have to reboot -- I would want the two computers to continuously sync with each other as long as they are on the same network.

Re:Ultra portable

[profplump]

I've actually done it, both on a removable-disk and network basis. It's a simple as a login/logout script that makes a symlink. Seriously, this is a retarded patent. I'm all for Apple and portable home directories, but this should not be patentable.

Re:Ultra portable

[profplump]

`fink install unison` There's even a X11 GUI for it if you're into that sort of thing. (And a website: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/index.ht ml)

It does syncronization over any sort of socket or locally; it defaults to using SSH. It runs in ocaml so it works anywhere there's an ocaml runtime -- Windows/OS X/linux/etc.

It presents a simple copy left/copy right/skip interface for files with conflicts. Or you can run in batch mode to skip conflicts silently. Or you can set it to prefer one source for conflicts and always resolve in that direction.

It can be set to ignore files or folders with a simple or regex expression list.

You can configure several different sink sets and run them individually. I use this feature so that my desktop and documents get synced every time you're online, but my music folder only syncs when I'm on the local network.

It supports prioritizing sync traffic by size, name, modification time, etc., so you can decide what files get synced first, which is handy on slow links. It also uses the rsync partial-binary transfer so that changes in large binary files don't require copying the entire file.

It can copy permissions and ownership verbatim (process permissions permitting), or you can specify exactly what permissions are copied or not.

There is a little work to be done in setting it up, but in general I find that a couple of unison batches in an hourly cron job plus one manual sync per week let me switch between my desktop and laptop without even thinking about it.

Re:Ultra portable

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

What you are looking for is to transform you profiles into mobile users (have a look in MacOS X Server's features). I've been able to make that work using a Linux Server, OpenLDAP et NFS shares. It took me 4 days, but now I'm always in sync (without my iMovies).

Re:Ultra portable

[arminw]

.....Second, I would rather be able to sync spcific stuff......

There are a number of file and folder sync programs available. A subsequent poster has pointed to UNISON which I have never used, but appears to be very powerful for use by a knowledgeable user. The program I use has a number of settings for one way sync and excluding or including a list of files and folders from the sync process. It is a simple drag and drop shareware program called FoldersSynchronizerX made by a company that has a site called www.softobe.com, where the details can be learned.

Impressive

[TCM]

If only other systems had thought of that. You could implement it so that all the data of one user is stored in a single directory, called home directory.

We could even invent a new notation specifically for that. Like, I don't know, ~user/ or something.

Man, Apple users get all the goodies. :(

Re:Impressive

[hypnagogue]

You may want to consider that the problem is more subtle than that.

Just because you have your home directory on an iPod connected to a foreign Mac doesn't mean that you can authenticate and log in. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could have, in your home directory, credentials signed by a trustee that you could use to log in to any system, with your access limited to writing to public areas or your own home directory. Furthermore, encrypt that image on the iPod so that it can't be accessed unless you authenticate successfully. I'm not sure what the scope of the invention is, since I refuse to read patents or patent applications, but it might be a great solution to a tough problem. It also has implications for DRM licensing schemes -- licenses that apply to the user, not the computer.

I know sarcasm is like breathing after a few years on slashdot, but this might actually be an interesting invention. We'll have to wait and see.

Re:Impressive

[epee1221]

with your access limited to writing to public areas or your own home directory.

Darn! I was gonna put a sudoer account on a jump drive and root every box in sight!

Re:Impressive

[GCsoftware]

Interestingly enough, this is almost identical to the system I implemented for using USB flash drives as authentication tokens as my MSc thesis. I might put up the PDF of the project up if people are interested.

Re:Impressive

[P. Niss]

I might put up the PDF of the project up if people are interested.

No.

Re:Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep it.

As 'prior art', this might net you some money down the road when MS would challenge Apple's patent.

Re:Impressive

[zo219]

Ha Ha, Neener-Neener, Tough Nuts, Eat Your Heart Out.

Er, I mean ... Yes, we do.

Re:Impressive

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Actually, it looks like this might allow you to have automatic access to multiple home directories active at the same time, just plug in a new drive and you can have a new set of user accounts added to the existing list. I'm not a heavy UNIX guy, but I haven't seen anyone do that yet.

Re:Impressive

[slughead]

If only other systems had thought of that. You could implement it so that all the data of one user is stored in a single directory, called home directory.

Actually, when going from a Powermac G5 to my mac pro, I had my 'user folder' was actually another hard drive.

When I switched, I simply plugged in my old hard drive to the new computer, created a user, and pointed the user folder to the hard drive.

It had preferences for all the programs I hadn't even installed yet, complete with serial numbers and registration codes in some instances.

Re:Impressive

[obeythefist]

Presumably by "User Account" we really mean all the stuff associated with a user preferences and profile and data.

Windows has always included tools to migrate user data from one system to another, and of course Windows Server has allowed centralised user data storage since the NT4.0 days through roaming profiles.

Windows Vista contains several new tools to automate migration, backup, import and export of user data, and even more beneficial, Vista is designed from the start to combine the profile data, user files and other miscellaneous profile stuff into one folder, stored under "Users". No more "Documents and Settings", which was a little unwieldy to remember.

So Apple is finally playing catch-up to MS? Or are they pushing this out the door before October 25 so they can say MS ripped them off again?

Re:Impressive

[catwh0re]

Just a few things about this and your comment.

The feature was to appear back in 10.3, but was likely pulled because the hard drive based iPods of the day weren't having 100% stability with the hard drives inside. So it would be a bad idea to have your iPod carry around all your irreplacable data when there is a chance that just dropping the iPod could destroy it. Now Apple have significantly large flash based iPods (big enough to support a home directory.) So the idea is back on the table without the fear of randomly losing all your data from damage to the iPod.

In terms of the feature itself it carries your "keychain" and preferences with you, so operating on any mac will be the same experience as using it on your own mac at home. (Not just access to home directory files for example.) Additionally OSX already supports "live" encryption of the home directory, under the feature name of "FileVault". Which can be optionally enabled.

Of interest as well is that many users are already doing this, as you can already install your entire OS + home folders onto an iPod, then plug it into any mac and boot from it. (Contract graphic designers usually do this with the "daisy cutter" drives as they require no batteries/powersource.)

Re:Impressive

[obeythefist]

The killer app for this kind of mobility is obviously storing either your ~user/ or Windows profile or MacOS whatever on the internets and synching it when you're online.

Ideally, internet access should be fast and everywhere.
When you have internet access fast and everywhere, it is obvious to then store your stuff on it.

While this is very convenient for us it is also very convenient for the US govt to carefully spy on everyone, so I am surprised this has not been made mandatory by the US world government DRM constitution, whose words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONRY.

Re:Impressive

[jZnat]

Apple is playing catch-up to UNIX. Wait, that doesn't make sense...

Re:Impressive

[Lussarn]

This is straight from the patent:

A few sophisticated users have modified operation of existing operating systems, such as Mac OS X, to provide some portability to their user account from a work computer to a home computer. This requires specialized software tools to manipulate and modify the data structures for a user account in a database (e.g., netinfo database). Armed with such specialized tools, a very sophisticated user would first establish a local user account on the multi-user computer (work computer), and then use the specialized tools to edit the location of the default user directory, such that it is made to reside on an external storage device. Then, at the other location where a multi-user computer (home computer) is to be used by the same user, a user account would be again established on such a machine, and then using special tools to render the user identifier the same as that which the work computer used when creating the user account at the work computer.

So basically they say that prior art do exist. They even admit (in the fscking patent application!) "a few sophisticated users" have already done this, and now they want to steal that work and patent it. Isn't that great.

These modifications to the multi-user computers are not intended modifications and thus tend to compromise the reliability of the operation of the multi-user computers.

This would translate to "if something isn't invented by Apple it doesn't count as prior art".

Further, the required specialized tools, although available, are neither well documented nor user-friendly.

But they do exists, as you admit in your application. This looks like the kind of bullshit these companies puts in EULAs to make them stand up better against the laws, with the difference that this is a patent application and now it's used to stand up better to prior art.

Re:Impressive

[Lumpy]

I know sarcasm is like breathing after a few years on slashdot, but this might actually be an interesting invention. We'll have to wait and see.

Invention???

I've done this under Solaris for over 10 years now. it only takes some skilled confugurations and Poof, your /home/username directory and all your files,configs,etc.. reside on removeable media.

what apple is doing is not innovative or impressive. most people in the Unix world has done this in one form or another.

Re:Impressive

[rjstanford]

That's because you don't (or at least you're not supposed to) patent a concept. You patent a process. They're patenting a much smoother, more seamless process. That's allowable, and is actually what patents were originally intended to support.

Re:Impressive

[CatOne]

This isn't what the patent is about, though. It's trivial to put your home on removable media. The trick (and I hope the devil's in the details, because the concept isn't all that interesting) is to have the login info and credentials on the external media as well, and have the OS hook into it so you can walk up to a machine with your iPod (or firewire HD), plug it in, and log into the machine. Obviously there are some security implications yadda yadda, and without knowing what the final solution looks like I have no idea how that would be handled.

There's obviously prior art here; it seems Apple is citing a lot of it. I'm interested in what (if anything) new is brought to the table. No doubt it will be called the largest thing ever in a keynote ;-)

Re:Impressive

[arminw]

......Just because you have your home directory on an iPod connected to a foreign Mac doesn't mean that you can authenticate and log in....

I have a small, bootable 80Gb FW HD which usually works with any Mac which is physically accessible. I have never tried to make a bootable iPod, but that should work also, in theory at least. Boot the foreign Mac with the external HD. Dismount (eject) the Internal HD. Do your work. You may have to fiddle with the network control panel and may not be able to get past some network security settings in some cases however.

When all done, reboot the computer and unplug your external drive when you hear the startup sound. The owners of the computer will never know nor care, since nothing was changed on the guest computer.

Re:Impressive

[obeythefist]

I appreciate what Apple is doing, they're getting their user profile management stuff in order (I am actually a little surprised this wasn't the case previously, which is why I made my original point, that Microsoft had already supplied user profile management tools to admins to help them move user data around).

MacOS really does integrate the GUI and the OS quite tightly, like modern Windows does, so they are clearly facing the same problems where information is stored in more than one single location, and they are making that information more portable.

Of course someone already made the point that Knoppix is far superior to any of these OS's because it allows you to dump the info to a USB thingy and it looks for that info whenever you boot it wherever you boot it. That's close to the holy grail of user portability. Internet based is of course ideal, assuming you have internet everywhere and it's fast and reliable.

Wouldn't it be handy to have all your stuff everywhere you go? Wouldn't it be even more handy if you didn't have to carry it with you, it was just "there" waiting for you wherever you switch on? So this is Apple's approach.

or a DRM limitation

[doodlelogic]

Maybe for movies the studios are demanding only the paying user can view on their iPod - so movie downloads will be tied to a user account on each device.

= instant rootkit!

[dolphinling]

Wheee, I'll put my root account on my ipod and then I can take over any box I want! Woohoo!

Except wait. I don't run OSX. I run Linux. And I don't have an ipod.

Oh well.

Re:= instant rootkit!

[mr_matticus]

Silly rabbit, you can't put a machine root account on a portable drive.

Re:= instant rootkit!

[MicrosoftRepresentit]

Hi! I use Linux! Its really great! Can I have some mod-points too? I was going to put some sarcastic geek tought talk in here too but I can't think of any.

Re:= instant rootkit!

[pkulak]

So you proudly tell everyone you can that you run Linux and you screw up copying a geeky phrase off a t-shirt because you don't actually know what it means? Is this Digg?

Re:= instant rootkit!

[44BSD]

He used some wicked-ass crypto to turn binary into Roman numerals, in 7337-speak. Don't be hatin!

Prior art?

[SIGBUS]

Such functionality is already available in Knoppix. Not only can you store your configuration and updates on a USB thumb drive or HD, but the OS itself is portable, too.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. That just means Knoppix is illegal. Only The Terrarists use it. The USA's patent system is THE BEST IN THE WURLDS.

Re:Prior art?

[lmpeters]

I think the idea here is that the home directory is mirrored on the internal hard disk AND an external device of some kind. Then again, I think InterMezzo has prior art on that. So this may seem like a novel idea for your average PC user, but it's not novel enough to warrant a patent.

Of course, it's not like the USPTO hasn't ever issued a patent on something that should never have been patentable...

Re:Prior art?

[2nd Post!]

I dunno, I've been doing that with Mac OS X since 2001, when the first iPod was released.

In other words, I could install both the OS or keep my user account on the iPod HDD. In comparison Knoppix has only been around since 2002, hasn't it?

Re:Prior art?

[heinousjay]

You think the idea, as in your gleaned it from incomplete information, or you know it, as in you read the patent, and you are a patent attorney, so you actually know something? I'm suspecting the former, but you may yet surprise me.

Re:Prior art?

[Overly Critical Guy]

This patent was actually filed back in 2002 and was slated for OS X Panther but was pulled for whatever reason. It's not uncommon for a patent to take years to be granted, hence the term "patent pending."

Re:Prior art?

[lmpeters]

I am not a patent attorney, but I remember reading an article about Intermezzo a few years ago in Linux Magazine. And I did read the patent abstract (the actual claims sound like weasel-speak designed to trick inattentive USPTO officers into thinking that it is a novel idea).

My point was that replicating data across multiple filesystems is not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, so even if the patent discusses a specific application thereof, Apple should not be able to get a patent on it. But as long as one can get a patent on the comb-over hairstyle, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple could get this patent anyway.

Re:Prior art?

[misleb]

Almost every PC bios used in the last 3 or 4 years supports booting from USB.

Not in my experience. Some claim to but don't do it corrently (or consistently). Some will boot USB memory stick, but not a disk, for example. It is hit an miss.

Even if this 1/3 number you claim was correct, there are still 10s of millions more PC's in the world capable of booting from USB then there are Macs that can boot from USB. Meaning if you walk around and pick any computer you see at random (MAC or PC), you will find magnatudes more PCs capable of booting from USB.

True, but I'd rather KNOW that my media will boot on a set of systems rather than just cross my fingers and hope. I guess it really depends on whether or not you find yourself in a Mac centric environment. For regular Mac users in certain environments, bootable external media is (and has been for many years) very useful for a wide range of purposes. My experience as a PC tech/user has been that Live Linux systems are of limited usefulness in comparison. Mostly because you end up defaulting to CD to catch all of the systems you might boot and writing data becomes a pain.

-matthew

Re:Prior art?

[profplump]

As the patent sites, this functionality is already available even in OS X. Heck, this functionality is basically just a login hook to mount your home directory where the system expects it. It's not exactly complicated.

As far as OS portability goes, OS X is portable too, and the machines that run it even have a friendly graphical boot-disk selection system. Install 10.4 on a USB drive, go to any machine that will run it, attach the drive and reboot holding down the option key. Frankly, any sane OS is "portable" among machines of the same architecture. It's just the popularity of certain fragile OSes that makes you think otherwise.

Re:Prior art?

[Cybrex]

There are also driver issues to contend with when booting an arbitrary PC from a USB drive. Conversely, I've booted my G3 iMac, my tower at work, and a friend's G4 iMac all off of the backup I made of my 12" PowerBook. No driver issues, no waiting while it detects new hardware, no wizards to click through. Just boot and go.

Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[dontbflat]

This sure sounds a lot like romming profiles on windows. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but thats just my take on it.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[Ark42]

I dunno, but when I play musical chairs with various hardware pieces and build myself a new computer with a fresh Windows installation, I never seem to have any trouble just copying the entire folder from Documents and Settings over to the new installation. As long as I install the same programs, things always have worked just fine. Heck, the HKCU part of the registry comes with the user profile as well, so I don't have to re-customize the way I like things.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[mr_matticus]

Roaming profiles is a synchronization mess unless the profiles are server-managed. I've never really seen roaming profiles successfully employed outside of the corporate environment. Sure, you and I are capable of handling it, but the devil's in the details, as they say.

If Apple pulls this off, it will be seamless and invisible and mostly foolproof--three adjectives you'll never hear associated with roaming profiles.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[Hawthorne01]

But if it's a just a user account, I don't think it would have the applications as well. Unless you want to piss off the other users on your Mac and install all your apps in your user account alone...

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[gumbi west]

Hmm, that's actually a great point, but wouldn't the SW companies love that--licenses for each user instead of for each computer.

That asside, at a university, the place is usually awash with apps, but where are your documents? In your flash drive or email, if you keep them on the server, how do you get them from home (scp will do, but it's not the easiest to use relative to "click here, do that.")

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[toadlife]

This is definitely different from roaming profiles, as it should require a lot less manual labor and know how, but it looks like this is something that could be easily implimented in Windows.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[bergeron76]

Uhmm, no. Roaming profiles is a client-server model. You have to have a dedicated authentication server (a PDC in the windowz case) for authentication.

Drat - I just feel for your flamebait...

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[killjoe]

Except for the two hours it takes to move all your stuff to the new PC. It doesn't use something like rsync either it copies entire files over. God help you if the PC you are on does not have the exact same software installed either.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many user migration tools and locally generated scripts in the corporate world support "user migration" that is not associated with roaming profiles. Our IT department moves and replaces machines all of the time for users and with one click to backup the users settings from the original machine, and one click to restore the settings to the new machine, the user has all of their printers, backgrounds, sounds, font sizes and themes, fax settings, MS Office toolbars and custom dictionaries, Outlook settings including signatures, layouts, toolbars, desktop and start menus including icons and shortcuts, all of the files and settings in "My Documents", favorites, cookies and much more. The user sees NO difference between the old machine and the new one and this process takes less then a few minutes (time depends on how much they have in My Documents which for some people is several GB). We even used this concept with some further automation throughout our entire organization when going from 2000 to XP. Three IT people could convert about 100 computers a night (One to backup and restore user data, one to wipe out 2000 and push out and install XP, and one to walk around and verify).
During daily operations.. If a user has a "computer" issue, we can have them a freshly imaged machine with all of their apps (through the imaging process and software pushing tools and pre built packages) and settings (through our migration tools and scripts) at their desk in less then 15 minutes and they can get back to work immediately. The troubleshooting on the broken machine if needed or required, is done by the IT department back in the cube farm and the user is not bothered again.

There are many tools and ways to automate Windows deployment, software installs and user configurations, whether you know about them or use them is up to your comfort and knowledge level.

On a side note, I am no Windows fanboy, I just get paid to know it and administer it. I only have one Windows machine at home, the other four are various distros of Linux including my kids computers.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[TWooster]

Eh, I don't think it'd be a big deal. If the Mac is a home machine, big whoop. Most of the time, the one doing the syncing and roaming profiles will be someone who needs it, who is likely the person who purchased the computer anyway. If it's a work computer, you'll be the only one using it (almost all of the time), and if you're going between home and work, to do work at home, you'll probably have the same applications installed there anyway. Besides, applications aren't THAT large unless they're games. Perhaps there could also be a feature to copy certain global applications; a local "cache" of certain software that your system has. Why not?

My only real concern would be software that requires system components installed for serial verification, ala activation, with data that wouldn't be explicitly stored with the user account, but in a system folder instead.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[homesteader]

Roaming profiles are a torture device designed by Bill Gates to help subjugate hapless IT workers.

It doesn't "Synchronize", it checks if which is older(local or remote) and then dumps the whole damn thing over the network. Roaming Profiles make .Mac synchronization look like a fucking work of art.

I have approximately 60 users with Roaming Profiles. They suck.

<nasal whine>I deleted this icon and when I logged on it came back again, can you fix it?!</nasal whine>

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[rtechie]

Since you can stick a user profile anywhere, all you have to do is change your profile directory to the thumb drive. Wah. You can do this with the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, User State Migration tool, a bunch of admin tools, or by manually hacking the registry.

What you CAN'T do is plug in a thumb drive and have Windows automatically detect the user information and add the user information to the OS. You have to use the Wizard, etc. Though you could probably hack this somehow with autorun.inf files. Seems like a feature that would be trivially easy to add.

Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this?

[Junior J. Junior III]

It's like roaming profiles, except roaming profiles live on an server somewhere in your AD, and these portable account directories live on little devices that you carry with you.

So when...

[Quaoar]

...does Apple release their 5TB iPod to help make my porn collection mobile? Or am I going to have to carry around a backpack full of them?

Re:So when...

[not-enough-info]

Psh! What-ever. You don't have 5TB of...

*du -h pr0n/*

oh. my. god...

Re:So when...

[jZnat]

Dude, how did you know the name of my porn folder?

Re:So when...

[SnprBoB86]

Your backpack full of 5TB iPods!?!?

Re:So when...

[Hes Nikke]

just imagine a beowulf cluster of backpacks full of iPods... in a bigger backpack

Feature removed from 10.3

[bubba451]

This was actually once promised and even advertised as part of 10.3 "Panther" and then was inexplicably removed. Here was the marketing blurb:

Home away from home

Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands or in your pocket? You can. Panther's Home on iPod feature lets you store your home directory - files, folders, apps - on your iPod (or any FireWire hard drive) and take it with you wherever you go. When you find yourself near a Panther-equipped Mac, just plug in the iPod, log in, and you're "home," no matter where you happen to be. And when you return to your home computer, you can synchronize any changes you've made to your files by using File Sync, which automatically updates offline changes to your home directory.

Mac Rumors has some of the history.

Re:Feature removed from 10.3

[NatasRevol]

At the time, according to some, the real problem was the hard drive of the iPod it isn't/wasn't designed to be used as a real HD, running for hours continuously. Hence the cache and spin up/spin down. Yeah, it saves on battery life, but it also saves the HD life.

But I still put OS X, drive utils & my home dir there. Very nice if you have accounts on your work & home mac. And my iPod is still going 4 yrs later, so I guess it wasn't too hard, or I got lucky.

Re:Feature removed from 10.3

[purplelocust]

I don't have an iPod but I do effectively exactly what is described there with a small external Firewire drive I got a few years ago. I use Firewire target mode and boot whatever machine I'm at off of my drive and then it's just like all my other computers. It started as a way to make it easier to bike to work (carry the small drive instead of a laptop) but soon I realized this would work with any of my machines and just about anyone else's reasonably modern MacOS machine and it works great. I use rsync to make backups, and somehow everything Just Works fine. I have offices in several locations and no matter where I am, I've got the latest versions of everything and all my apps. I don't think any of the "portable account" solutions address the issue of making sure all your apps are intact, though; that seems much more difficult to handle simply.

I don't know how well this will continue to work with the new Intel Macs- my stable of machines ranges from an old Powerbook G3 to aluminum PB G4s to old AGP G4 PowerMacs to a couple of G5 PowerMac setups.

They are waiting for the right time....

[d0n quix0te]

... to turn on a new business model. I am pretty sure that Apple is waiting for two things before they release this feature. First, next generation EFI based PCs and second for 8GB flash memory to come down in pricing.

This way, you could safely run OS X off the portable device (mini-hard drives in iPods are not meant to take repeated read/writes...). Apple will then make a business of selling a 'home to go' device that you can take with you and plug into any next gen PC. Voila! Instant access to all your Apps and files.

This way they can make up any lost sales of OS X/Mac by selling us a portable device.

-S

Re:They are waiting for the right time....

[PHPfanboy]

Cool, hopefully it's like http://www.projectblackdog.com/ but on an iPod with Mac OS X. That would be fabulous.

Re:They are waiting for the right time....

[NatasRevol]

I agree in theory, it would be a nice device.

But this makes you choose between your 8GB of music and your 8GB of apps+docs. Not a whole lot of room if you start sharing that space.

I would assume that they would allow, or maybe require!, the music directory to not be synced, since in theory it's on the music side of the iPod. Mine, however, is on a separate, larger partition.

Re:They are waiting for the right time....

[Jerry Smith]

Apple will then make a business of selling a 'home to go' device that you can take with you and plug into any next gen PC.

Apple doesn't want you to have a pc, Apple wants you to have a Mac for use of OS X. {insert 3.PROFIT!!!-comment here}

[offtopic] Binary fun

[toadlife]

"There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.

So what is the third type? Those who think they can?

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[ElephanTS]

[snigger]

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[camperdave]

Duh! Obviously the guy is one of the ones who CANNOT count in binary.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[Poromenos1]

Hmm, that version of the joke might as well have been ""There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't."

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[edwardpickman]

So what is the third type? Those who think they can?

Heres a test for the third type. Binary 101. What value does 101 have in traditional Euclidean Math? A clue, it's not one hundred and one.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[jaysones]

You didn't check the GP's sig obviously.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[Firehed]

Only on Slashdot could a post like that get +1, Informative. Somewhat ironic that it truly is informative.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[goldmeer]

"There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't."

"So what is the third type? Those who think they can?"

That would be correct. And you are one of them.

0 - The unwashed masses that do not realise that you can have a yes/no value represented by one bit
1 - The clueful
10 - "Psuedonerds" that almost "get it"
11 - I can only guess "underwear gnomes with hot grits"

The joke should have been:
There are 1 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
(Boy that would drive the grammar nazis craaaazy!)

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[gutnor]

"There are 1 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't."

No no

There are indeed 10 types of people in the world:
            0 - the geeks with 9 fingers who also counts 5 cans in a six-pack.
            1 - the not-geek with 10 fingers
          10 - the geeks with 10 fingers

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[toadlife]

I bet you're a blast a parties.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[Planesdragon]

0 - The unwashed masses that do not realise that you can have a yes/no value represented by one bit

Yes, you can. But when you're talking about real types, you assign them a value. The existance of null-persons is always implied.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[gkhan1]

Exactly! Euclid didn't even use a base-10 positional number system, what the hell does he have to do with anything?

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[zoloto]

what about the geeks with 9 fingers?

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[homer dulu]

most people don't seem to know the original joke:

there are three types of people: those who can count and those who can't.

Re:[offtopic] Binary fun

[FirienFirien]

What? No. Wrong. A conversation between you and I would not have 1 participants (0 you 1 me). It has 2 participants (0 null value 1 you [2|10] me)

0 - null set. Don't try to put people in it, because this category does not exist.
1 - the unwashed masses
10 - the washed masses
11 - the gripping hand masses

Your final joke only works if you set the context to binary AND count yourself out of the set that can count in binary (potentially true, from your post).
The original joke (10 types of people) stands.
The poster's sig joke (11 types of people) stands by adding an extra layer of abstraction; by pissing off the people who get the 10 joke but don't get the 11. It's got a nice duality of being either clever or stupid; you can read that as reflecting yourself. Perhaps the poster didn't understand the original joke, and pseudonerded it wrong; or he was being weird and just pissing off the nerd sticklers. Either of those ways, and I'm trying to be too clever by half; but either way round you're still wrong. If you count dec2 as bin1, then "1 types of people" is grammatically correct, too - just your idea of binary no longer matches up with the rest of the mathematical workd.

slax webconfig???

[GLneo]

Isn't it easier to take the internet with you? : http://www.slax.org/webconfig.php

In the 90's

[LennyDotCom]

I used to have an external SCSI HD that I booted from on my mac. Back then I could plug it in to any Mac and boot to my Desktop with all my software I thought that was so awsome. Someone had a boot problen or what ever I just plugged in my HD booted then fixed it.

I life was so easy then

Re:In the 90's

[GLneo]

You can just carry around an internal ATA drive and just boot your whole OS with all your Software and every thing!, but i think that defeats the point. What is the point? Can't you all ready put your software on a USB drive and take it with, what else is there other than your Docs + Apps?

Re:In the 90's

[pizzach]

Actually, you can boot off of the firewire drives now on the Macs. I don't know how USB is doing though. Or you probably could just bring a Mac Mini and boot off of it the same way you boot off of an external hard drive.

It's VERY handy for diagnosing problems, backup etc.

Re:In the 90's

[TheRaven64]

Why just the home directory? Why not put an entire OS install in a VM and carry that around with you? I saw a demo last year by a guy from IBM doing that. He kept his OS and local files on a Xen image on a USB flash drive. It would resume state when he plugged it into a machine and if there was an Internet connection it could even establish a VPN connection back home and mount a remote share. When he suspended the VM, he didn't just take his documents with him, he took his entire machine state.

Re:In the 90's

[eclectic4]

"I used to have an external SCSI HD that I booted from on my mac. Back then I could plug it in to any Mac and boot to my Desktop with all my software I thought that was so awsome. Someone had a boot problen or what ever I just plugged in my HD booted then fixed it. I life was so easy then"
 
I don't understand this statement, or why it was modded up. Go out and buy a 100 GB Firelite (or any external FW drive, FireLites can just fit in your pocket and are bus powered meaning no external power whatsoever, just a FW cord), clone your entire Mac to it, and boot it on any other Mac by holding down the option key on boot and selecting it. The Mac will find any mounted volumes with a blessed OS installed on it and you can boot from whichever one you choose. Been able to to this for years. I have a Firelite with three partitions on it, one is simply a clone of my home Mac that I can boot to and run and diagnostics, directory fixer-uppers, etc.., on the now mounted internal drive. I can copy files, whatever I want, and the other two partitions on my Firelite are images of Tiger and Panther install DVD's that I can use for installs (or archive and installs). Can fix almost all software issues on a Mac with a thing that I can easily fit in my front pocket. No CD's, DVD's, laptops, etc...

Re:In the 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

Handy indeed. A year-and-change ago, one of my friends had purchased a G3 iceBook. Of course, its video eventually went bad (Apple has an REP out for that specific issue, even), and without video, she couldn't get her data off of it. I booted her laptop into target disk mode, then booted my PowerBook's hardware using her drive over FireWire. Turned on her remote desktop sharing and FireWire networking, rebooted both machines, then used ARD (plus other tools I had on my machine) to verify the problem for Apple and to get her data off. Everything over one cable. The whole process took maybe an hour, including burning CDs of all of her personal data.

I know, I could have just left my PowerBook running her drive and done most of the stuff that way, but she only wanted specific things and I wanted to show off. ;-) Plus, I was able to do other things on my machine using my software while I waited for her iBook to finish various tasks.

Re:In the 90's

[TheRaven64]

Doesn't that require any machine you plug into to have Xen all configured and ready to resume a virtual machine? How many machines like that are you likely to bump into outside of your home?

You're right; of course it does. Right now, you would be hard pressed to find a machine running Xen. I expect this to change soon, however. Vista is supposed to support Xen guests out of the box, and many free operating systems already have this as an option.

Re:In the 90's

[misleb]

You're right; of course it does. Right now, you would be hard pressed to find a machine running Xen. I expect this to change soon, however. Vista is supposed to support Xen guests out of the box, and many free operating systems already have this as an option.

Seems to me that VMware Player would be more practical. At least it is easier to set up.

In my experience, though, the real value of having a portable, bootable system is for utility rather than general purpose use. That is, you want to boot systems that are not currently working or are infected or whatever. Most people will do just fine with a USB memory stick containing important files and such. And if you have a Mac, you can even throw your favorite apps on it and run them from there. No admin rights required. MS Office for Mac, for example, doesn't even need to be installed. You can run it directly from external media. Just drag the Office folder from your /Applications folder to the media...

-matthew

So Apple patents automounting home directories ?

[ccandreva]

Amazing. To bad nobody thought of that 20 years ago.

Oh wait.

.mac

[fermion]

.mac provides some of this functionality. I have most of what I do on a daily basis on .mac, so it does not matter what machine I use. My mail, documents, etc can be easily synched between machines. This also means that I have three copies of everything, which is not as good as backup, but it pretty good. I can even sync my safari and camino bookmarks

What is missing is my library files, x-windows config and the like. So much is stuffed into the library files, mine is over 2GB, that I don't see how I could keep it remotely. I could put it on my ipod, but not my usb key.

Re:.mac

[ianwestcott]

This strikes me as what they're really trying to accomplish with this patent filing. Not something you take with you, but something that's stored on the server all the time. When you sit down at a Mac, you could log in with your .Mac account instead of a local account for that particular machine.

yes, some sort of "archive" format might work

[radarsat1]

This is brilliant. I can imagine some sort of program which could archive all your files and configuration information, and then.. perhaps some sort of compression could be applied to allow for greater portability. Great idea! Someone should try implementing this for Linux.

Can already do this with Yellow Dog Linux

[billdar]

Put a complete Yellow Dog Linux install on your iPod and reboot any PPC mac into your entire OS with all your settings and applications. When on the move, it still plays your music and can be used with iTunes.

Even IBM does this to recover dead PC's.

Does this mean I can declare prior art? Get my lawyer on the bat-phone

Re:Can already do this with Yellow Dog Linux

[NatasRevol]

You're missing the point.

Take your iPod, plug it into another Mac, and log into that home directory. Where there has never been a user account for that home directory on the host Mac.

What you described can be done with OS X as well. I've done it on my iPod for about 4 years now. Install a bunch of disk tools on the iPod, and you have a great troubleshooting device.

Re:Can already do this with Yellow Dog Linux

[billdar]

Naw, I see where you're coming from... but :)

My main point is that as where they are describing re-logging in for your home directory, you can just as simply reboot and get all your applications.

It doesn't exactly help to carry your presentations/spreadsheets/etc.. around with you if nothing on the host system will display them.

Re:Can already do this with Yellow Dog Linux

[billdar]

Sorry to reply to my own post, but my main point was actually that it's not much of a strech to see this may not be a patent-able idea...

Roaming Profiles

[nurb432]

Thats what it sounds like to me, except you can store it on a removable device instead of a server.

Still, would be nice to have, if they can solve the massive security risks.

In the palm of your hand?

[Seoulstriker]

Ever thought you could carry your home in the palm of your hands?

I know that I can carry my entire genome in the palm of my hand... about 15,000,000 copies of it. Beat that!

Re:In the palm of your hand?

[Daniel_Staal]

Yeah, but it's in a proprietary encrypted format which is unreadable without specialized equipment. (That has all been reverse-engineered to read the format: the original creator refuses to open their toolkit.)

Re:In the palm of your hand?

[dmd]

You must have really fucking tiny palms if that's all you can carry.

Re:In the palm of your hand?

[smoker2]

He can carry more, but it gets lost in the hair !

Old News

[Arcady13]

This "new" patent is four years old.

Portable Apps

[frelax]

you can take your apps (or at least some of them) with you today: http://portableapps.com/
you can't sync, 'though

iPod you say? Why yes!

[AWhiteFlame]

This definitely sounds like something the iPod would win at and would still be apple-style. You can just picture the keynote where Jobs has 2 iMacs and an iPod with a user account, he removes the iPod from dock 1 and places it in dock 2, clicks around, "...and boom. I'm logged in with all my settings, bookmarks, and files." I think I could see myself using this functionality.

Lessee... Get Info... Calculating...

[jpellino]

That'd be a 12GB home directory on my iBook G4 - better pony up for the non-flash iPod.

evil

[oohshiny]

This feature has been available under UNIX for more than two decades. For Apple to patent this is really evil.

Re:evil

[KayosIII]

Almost but I can see a 2 subtle destinctions... 1) On Unix the user ID is a number and may not correspond to the user ID on another computer. So there must be another mechanism for identifying the user. 2) There seems to be an auto syncronisation between the Local Account and the Portable Account. IE changed settings and added data are written in both places. Personally I hate that stuff like this can be patented.

Re:evil

[oohshiny]

Whether you synchronize and what uid you use are configuration choices. The usual UNIX thing to do is to require you to log into the machine as some existing user and then you switch over your home directory, that's all.

Apple may have made a different choice, for example by having the login process recognize an external storage device. But that's a configuration choice, not an invention.

Old Planned Feature

[beefstu01]

For what it's worth, I believe that this was meant to be a feature in 10.3, but it got cut. As I recall, when Steve Jobs first announced the OS, there was a small blurb on the "Sneak Peek" page about a "Home on your iPod" feature. It was up for a month or so, then disappeared. Guess it's been in the pipeline for a while. Source.

Re:So Apple patents automounting home directories

[NatasRevol]

...automounting home directories where there isn't a user account. It's the where clause that no one has quite come up with before. Maybe thought of it, but never figured out how to implement it. Even Apple has struggled with it for a couple of years now.

This shouldn't be patentable. It's been done ...

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Damn. The Patent Office take a good look at this before a patent is granted.

New?

[RAMMS EIN]

``All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.''

And we aren't able to do that yet?

Re:So Apple patents automounting home directories

[joe_bruin]

It would be fairly simple to create a PAM module and daemon that, when detecting a USB device with certain information on it (say a passwd file), could mount that disk in /home/thatuser (overriding file permissions so that all items are owned by that user and nodev, nosuid), and allow that user to log in. It would not take any more modifications than that to make any Linux or BSD system be capable of doing roaming profiles on a removable drive. Quick, someone implement it!

Long live the NeXT!

[taweili]

When Jobs brought out NeXT in the 1990, he refused to have harddrive in NeXT and insist everything on the 250MB Optical/Magnetic disc. The idea was the students can carry everything they have on the disc and use any machine available.

Re:Long live the NeXT!

[FluffyWithTeeth]

He tried that for the Macintosh as well, and was told by his engineers it was a fucking stupid idea then, too.

God, he wanted the original Macintosh to run off just a 5+1/4" disk, at least made it up to a 1.44MB 3+1/2 due to sensible people working under him.

Re:Long live the NeXT!

[sickofthisshit]

The 1.44MB version of the 3.5 inch floppy is substantially later than the original 1984 Mac. That Mac had 400kB floppies, uprgraded to 800kB floppies around 1986. 1.44MB were introduced sometime around 1987.

Re:Long live the NeXT!

[taweili]

Third time may be the charm? ;) I can see that could be useful now a day. I use Powerbook. I want to get a Mac Pro for home. Trying to maintain data in two machine is a pain in the butt.

hmmm

[toadlife]

"Those who count in unary."

I bet that was the joke and the GP is laughing at us all right now.

Sooper!

[certain death]

I don't really care if Apple does it, but for sure SOMEONE needs to!! I should have patented this back in 2000 :o)

Re:Sooper!

[emjoi_gently]

Or in 2002.
Ummm... look at the Filed Date of the Patent.

Hmm

[majortom1981]

Wouldnt this be the equivalent to roaming profiles on xp? What would be the difference?

I'm sorry.

[Jerk City Troll]

But, what are you talking about? I have seen some fairly incoherent ramblings on Slashdot, and this one is up there.

Sounds similar to an Idea I had

[aashenfe]

I had a similar Idea a long time ago, and wrote a journal entry about it

http://slashdot.org/~aashenfe/journal/

I have no idea if this is really the same idea.

Absolutely correct

[mbessey]

The original iPod hard drives (from the 5 and 10 GB models) had a very short guaranteed run time. That wasn't a problem for the iPod as a music player, or for occasional file transfer, since the drive was turned off 90% or more of the time. OS X likes to write to the home directory frequently, though, so "Portable Home Directories" (as they were known at the time) had the potential to wear out the iPod's hard drive very quickly (a matter of weeks or months).

It turns out that the ACTUAL run time to failure for those drives was typically much longer than promised, so lots of folks have had success with using them as "live" drives. I have no idea what the specs on the current generation of iPod hard drives are, but I'd bet they're considerably more durable.

Hey, what do you know - Toshiba has published the specifications for the original 5GB iPod drive online:
http://www3.toshiba.co.jp/storage/english/spec/hdd /mk5002.htm#relia

That page claims a "product life" of "5 years or 20,000 POH (Power-On-Hours)". 20,000 hours is just over 2.25 years of continuous operation. Given that you can get a 2-year warranty for an iPod through AppleCare these days, that doesn't sound like a very good risk.

I don't happen to have a copy of the original spec sheet we got with the first-generation drives, but my recollection is that the quoted life span was much shorter - short enough that warranty returns for worn-out drives was a real concern if they were kept running all the time, even with the shorter warranties offered at the time (anybody else remember 90-day iPod warranties?).

Of course, for Flash devices (like those in the Shuffle and Nano) the lifetime is specified in terms of a certain number of write operations, rather than total time "turned on". The expected lifetime for an iPod Shuffle used as a home directory is probably very very long - dozens of years.

I don't think you've thought this through.

[porkchop_d_clown]

No current operating system can handle the permissions/security structure needed to have user login data on an external portable device.

For example: If the user's encrypted password is stored on the external device, what permission/rights does that user get to files on the internal hard drive? What rights are granted to the host computer for accessing the data on the external device?

Really?

[porkchop_d_clown]

Which operating systems allow user accounts to be stored on portable devices?

Not applications. Not data. The account - including all security information and preferences.

In *NIX operating systems, account data is stored in a single repository, usually files in /etc. In Windows, account data is stored in the registry. In OS X, it is currently stored in a database.

Re:Really?

[andydread]

Some questions for PorkChop.
Does a user account have to exist on all macs that the ipod gets docked to ?
If not does that mean that you can simply walk up to my mac and log into it without
having an account on my mac? and what are the security implications here ?
Does my mac need to have the same apps installed that you have on yours ?
What if you have msoffice files on your ipod and I don't have msoffice on my mac?
can you still edit your msoffice files on my mac?
If not then how is this useful?

I currently have osx installed on some usb flash drives
and I can boot any mac and the stuff I need with me on the
road is there. apps, docs, music etc. I don't even carry my powerbook
with me much anymore.

I also have puppy linux installed on another flash drive that
will boot any fairly new pc and i can get to my docs there also and they all simply
sync with a bash script and rsync. when i plug them into my mac

A bit confused here
how exactly does this work ?

Re:Really?

[porkchop_d_clown]

The way I read the patent:

Imagine a computer lab full of identically configured Macs. User walks up to one, plugs in his thumb drive. Mac recognizes the account data stored on that drive and user can now log in, using his user id and password.

It basically sounds something like what you can do with Windows Active Directory, or NIS (for *NIX environments) but without requiring a central database of user ids, since the user's information is stored on the thumb drive instead of a network server.

To be honest, while it's kind of cool technically I don't see much use for it in the real world; computers are cheap enough that people don't share them in a way that this is useful.

In what sense?

[porkchop_d_clown]

In UNIX, user accounts are managed through either flat files or a shared database. Neither of which involves moving user accounts around via external storage devices.

Re:In what sense?

[oohshiny]

In the sense that you can make any combination of user id mapping, storage device, and authentication work, and that people do. One common example is things like Knoppix and flash drives.

Don't get me wrong: this feature makes sense for the Mac environment. But Apple didn't invent storing accounts on removable media, and their particular combination of features represents a policy choice, not a new invention.

Software patents are a fact of life.

[porkchop_d_clown]

And, like all patents, they do serve a purpose; by providing an incentive to improve the state-of-the-art.

For example, would Bell have developed the telephone if he hadn't believed he'd be able to profit from it?

Re:Software patents are a fact of life.

[oohshiny]

Trouble is, Bell didn't develop the telephone. He did contribute something to its development, but he would probably have done that anyway.

From 2002?

[catdevnull]

From TFA:

Inventors: Bowers; Robert T (Cupertino, CA), Ko; Steve (San Francisco, CA)
Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA)
Appl. No.: 10/304,291
Filed: November 25, 2002

Maybe I don't know how to read these legal eagle documents and stuff, but it seems like this was filed some time ago. I don't think this has much bearing to 10.5 when this was filed when 10.2 was fresh on the shelves.

Erm...prior art?

[msimm]

They should learn how to work the US patent system, they'd be rich.

Only 12?

[porkchop_d_clown]

You haven't discovered video editing yet?

Re:Only 12?

[gkhan1]

Hey, I've got 62 GiBs of just crappy tv-shows, downloaded from bittorrent.

I gots to have my Buffy!

Re:Only 12?

[jpellino]

You haven't discovered video editing yet?

yes, just prior to discovering external drives...

two 30's sitting just starboard ;-)

It's hard to see the benefit.

[porkchop_d_clown]

I can see using this mainly in high school computer labs. In most other environments, people don't share computers anymore.

Which program

[porkchop_d_clown]

migrates your records in /etc/passwd and /etc/groups?

Re:Which program

[jZnat]

Uh, cp?

No one remembers NeXTstep?

[linuxtelephony]

One of the "features" of NeXT computers was an optical disk that could hold, I believe, 250 megabytes. You could store your desktop, etc. (basically your home directory) on that disk, taking it with you as you went from machine to machine.

What was that? Late 80s, early 90s? Of course, with Apple owning NeXTstep and morphing into OS X, it's no surprise they'd eventually roll out a similar feature. I am surprised by the patent. And, it begs the question, can this feature from NeXT be used as prior art against such a patent from Apple, even though Apple now owns NeXT? Would this be a self-defeating patent?

Re:No one remembers NeXTstep?

[mtec]

Apple now owns NeXT

In spirit, I think it was more the other way around. Kind of a digital coup d'état.

Re:No one remembers NeXTstep?

[dschuetz]

You could store your desktop, etc. (basically your home directory) on that disk, taking it with you as you went from machine to machine.

I think the original idea was somewhat more than that. For a while, they made Cubes available with only a 40 MB HD (yes, 40 MEG, remember those days?) for local swap space and such. The idea was that you'd have not only your personal account, but the *entire OS* on the optical disc. You would walk up to a machine (in a lab -- this approach was aimed at colleges), pop in the disc, and you'd have your entire environment, home account, programs, *and* local root access, all at once. Mess up the machine with that root access? So what, as soon as you pop out the disc your changes would go with *you*, not stay with the machine.

It was an interesting idea, but the drives were slower even than some of the old 1st gen 10 meg IBM XT drives, and (worse yet) the fan in many units was installed backward and drew dusty air through the optical drive.

I've still got a "floptical" at home, and a cube with a drive. Some day I'll pop in a hard drive, load up NS, and see if I can't read the disc still. If I recall correctly, it's still filled with all kinds of stupid pictures & sounds from the pre-web internet.

Good job, guys...

[jarrod.ranney]

Through tireless effort and hours of research on the internet you've discovered a feature discussed in August at the Developer's Conference in S.F.

Re:The Patent

[ellem]

Ugh I hate these nonsense emails.

So much crap in this one I don't even know how much the V14gr4 is...

Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[misleb]

You can boot a Mac off of an iPod. I know carrying around a whole system on your iPod is a bit of a waste of valuable music storage space, but it is possible. OS X isn't like Windows where the OS is tied to a particular hardware configuration. It is nearly one size fits all with OS X. You can even make a universal system that will boot either an PPC or Intel machine (I've done it). You could easily write scripts to synhronize your desktop with your iPod. I believe Carbon Copy Cloner will do it. Although I haven't used it in a while.

Having your home directory wherever you go is one thing, but how about all your apps too?

Macs are so nice to work with compared to PCs. I can't believe it took me 10 years to figure it out.

-matthew

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[Ash-Fox]

You can boot a Mac off of an iPod.

You can boot Windows off a iPod or any other USB device too. To be able todo this simply, one usually gets WinPE and the few of it's many plugins that lets it boot off USB devices.

OS X isn't like Windows where the OS is tied to a particular hardware configuration.

Actually windows isn't... Infact there are options in Windows that let you setup multiple hardware profiles, so when you boot you can be asked which specific profile you want to use... Or you can just use one profile like most people do and have all the hardware supported under that.

You can even make a universal system that will boot either an PPC or Intel machine (I've done it).

Well, there is no supported proprietary Windows OS solution for PPC anymore. Plus PPC systems seem to be dying. I some how doubt your iPod would boot my PPC Amiga though (can run Linux and AmigaOS fine though). The other thing is, don't you have to crack MacOSX for it to boot on most Intel machines -- and even then, it doesn't generally support the hardware that well from what I've heard.

You could easily write scripts to synhronize your desktop with your iPod. I believe Carbon Copy Cloner will do it.

I could use the briefcase synchronisation of windows, or offline files, or even a trick with roaming profiles.

By the way, have you found any noticeable speed differences when running the OS off the iPod?

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[misleb]

You can boot Windows off a iPod or any other USB device too. To be able todo this simply, one usually gets WinPE [runtime.org] and the few of it's many plugins that lets it boot off USB devices.

Good luck getting it to boot reliably. I tried making a Linux on USB system and found that, even though it would technically support the hardware, many PCs just didn't have the option to boot it. The only way to get a reliable PC boot media is to use CD/DVD but then writing persistent data and maintenance become a pain.

Actually windows isn't... Infact there are options in Windows that let you setup multiple hardware profiles, so when you boot you can be asked which specific profile you want to use... Or you can just use one profile like most people do and have all the hardware supported under that.

"Most people"? I have never once, in my 12 years of PC tech experience, seen someone use such a setup on with a PC. Maybe when building Ghost images, but even that is tricky. If it is so simple to setup, why does every Windows tech I hve ever known use a DOS boot disk/CD to run virus scanners, Ghost, and the like? For "most people," a portable, bootable "Windows" system means a DOS floppy image with an NTFS driver or the XP install media... and sometimes a Linux Live CD when Windows won't work. Maybe in theory you can get Windows to to boot on a significant subset of PCs off of USB, but only in the Mac world is it common practice.

Also, did you know that you can boot one Mac off of another Mac acting as as an external Firewire drive? No need to carry around an iPod or build special boot disks. Just boot one computer off of the drive of another. I've used this trick many times. You can't do anything even remotely like this on a PC without physically moving drives around. And even then, there is a good chance that Windows will simply refuse to boot on anything but the machine it was installed on.

Well, there is no supported proprietary Windows OS solution for PPC anymore. Plus PPC systems seem to be dying. I some how doubt your iPod would boot my PPC Amiga though (can run Linux and AmigaOS fine though). The other thing is, don't you have to crack MacOSX for it to boot on most Intel machines -- and even then, it doesn't generally support the hardware that well from what I've heard.

WTF are you talking about? What does you rusting Amiga have to do with anything? And why would I want to boot Intel OS X on a PC when I have a workplace and home full of Macs?

By the way, have you found any noticeable speed differences when running the OS off the iPod?

Yes, but it is mostly a utility, not a general pupose computing device. A firewire drive (yeah, Macs can boot those too) is drive a lot faster though. I could see myself using that, although 95% of the (computing) time I am using one of two computers. Any files that really need to be shared are either under version control or on a server that I can mount via VPN.

-matthew

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[Ash-Fox]

Good luck getting it to boot reliably. I tried making a Linux on USB system and found that, even though it would technically support the hardware, many PCs just didn't have the option to boot it.

Not my experience.

The only way to get a reliable PC boot media is to use CD/DVD but then writing persistent data and maintenance become a pain.

Also not my experience, often I come across CD/DVD-roms that just mess up reading some CDs, while the same CDs work fine in others (nothing todo with burn speeds), I've also had this issue on Mac hardware.

"Most people"? I have never once, in my 12 years of PC tech experience, seen someone use such a setup on with a PC.

Should I phrase it, "Most people who do this sort of thing" instead?

If it is so simple to setup, why does every Windows tech I hve ever known use a DOS boot disk/CD to run virus scanners, Ghost, and the like?

Strange, most windows techs I know would use BartPE for any recovery work on a unbootable system at remote locations while at business locations they would use network booting into recovery tools. But I am not sure what you're trying to say. How is inserting some DOS cd to run outdated virus scanners about running your own little desktop off a portable device?

For "most people," a portable, bootable "Windows" system means a DOS floppy image with an NTFS driver or the XP install media...

For most people, a portable "Windows" system is a laptop.

Maybe in theory you can get Windows to to boot on a significant subset of PCs off of USB, but only in the Mac world is it common practice.

It isn't a theory when I've already done it.

Also, did you know that you can boot one Mac off of another Mac acting as as an external Firewire drive?

Yes

You can't do anything even remotely like this on a PC without physically moving drives around.

I've booted standard x86 systems off Ethernet and USB using another PC -- I do admit it isn't as easy to setup though.

And even then, there is a good chance that Windows will simply refuse to boot on anything but the machine it was installed on.

Strange, the worst I've seen is that Windows asks you to reactivate it, but you can still use the computer despite that message.

WTF are you talking about? What does you rusting Amiga have to do with anything?

I don't get what you mean about 'rusting', what I do know is that Amiga is still developing, and it's still on the PPC platform, the Mac line of PPC products are ending. If you're going to use the word "PPC", I'm going to assume the architecture, and computers on that architecture, just as much as if you say "Intel", I'm going to assume computers that use the Intel processor, and x86 being the architecture and so on.

And why would I want to boot Intel OS X on a PC when I have a workplace and home full of Macs?

I miss-understood you it seems.

Yes, but it is mostly a utility, not a general pupose computing device.

By the way, ever heard of Blackdog? So far I think it's the 'neatest' way to take a mobile desktop with you -- although I haven't bought one yet, so I can't say this is a opinion drawn from experience.

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[misleb]

Good luck getting it to boot reliably. I tried making a Linux on USB system and found that, even though it would technically support the hardware, many PCs just didn't have the option to boot it.

Not my experience.

Well, I just verified that our Dell Dimensions (Pentium 4 machines) don't have a USB boot option. So that means that 95%, if not 100% (I haven't checked the few oddballs and laptops), of the PCs here cannot boot from USB. I know my home computer (P4 2Ghz) doesn't have the option either. At my previous employer it was hit and miss. Some computers could boot USB, but most couldn't. So I'm not really sure what your experience is or why it should be so different than mine. Is USB booting only common in the last year or two? Maybe the PCs I use are just now new enough.. but I think this is pretty common. Most computers are not as new as one or two years.

The only way to get a reliable PC boot media is to use CD/DVD but then writing persistent data and maintenance become a pain.

Also not my experience, often I come across CD/DVD-roms that just mess up reading some CDs, while the same CDs work fine in others (nothing todo with burn speeds), I've also had this issue on Mac hardware.

This is certainly far more rare than PCs that cannot boot USB. Perhaps I should have said "the most reliable PC boot media..."

I've booted standard x86 systems off Ethernet and USB using another PC -- I do admit it isn't as easy to setup though.

No, I mean booting using the harddrive/OS on another computer. Not netbooting or serving out a disk image via USB.

And even then, there is a good chance that Windows will simply refuse to boot on anything but the machine it was installed on.

Strange, the worst I've seen is that Windows asks you to reactivate it, but you can still use the computer despite that message.

Unless you specifically tweak the machine, differeing HAL setups will cause bluescreen last I checked.

Yes, but it is mostly a utility, not a general pupose computing device.

By the way, ever heard of Blackdog? So far I think it's the 'neatest' way to take a mobile desktop with you -- although I haven't bought one yet, so I can't say this is a opinion drawn from experience.

Actually, I'd probably use VMware Player on a portable drive. Simple and elegant. Kinda like booting Macs off various media. ;-)

-matthew

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[Ash-Fox]

Well, I just verified that our Dell Dimensions (Pentium 4 machines) don't have a USB boot option. So that means that 95%, if not 100%

Wow -- I'm quite amused discovering this actually, learned something new :). I rarely deal with Dell computers, Most computers in the companies (I can say for sure in this region -- not sure about the rest of the country) come from HP/Compaq, IBM, Lenovo and Acer (Acer doesn't provide corporate support like the other companies do though).

So that means that 95%, if not 100% (I haven't checked the few oddballs and laptops), of the PCs here cannot boot from USB.

Dell needs a bigger presence than just being popular in the USA and in the UK (I don't live in either countries right now -- I also haven't even seen a Dell or Sony system for a few months now just to give you a picture -- Did see them all the time in the UK though).

So I'm not really sure what your experience is or why it should be so different than mine.

Well, even if one vendor isn't as a popular... No -- it doesn't make sense to me.

Is USB booting only common in the last year or two?

Hmm, had three-four year old PCs are doing it, so I doubt so.

This is certainly far more rare than PCs that cannot boot USB.

Could be a number of things causing it though -- dirty laser, the actual media not of a reasonable quality etc - I just never bothered investigating why this happens occasionally (a lot faster to use alternatives).

No, I mean booting using the harddrive/OS on another computer. Not netbooting or serving out a disk image via USB.

This is somewhat of a grey line in my opinion, one can achieve the same results if one set it up that way.

Unless you specifically tweak the machine, differeing HAL setups will cause bluescreen last I checked.

Never experienced that issue (did have issues though with bad drivers on some hardware).

Actually, I'd probably use VMware Player on a portable drive. Simple and elegant. Kinda like booting Macs off various media. ;-)

Good idea, although I don't it would work too well on locked down workstations (non-administrator access).

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[misleb]

So I'm not really sure what your experience is or why it should be so different than mine

Well, even if one vendor isn't as a popular... No -- it doesn't make sense to me.

And it isn't just Dells. My PC at home (Shuttle) doesn't boot USB either. These are many other examples that I can't verify at the moment.

No, I mean booting using the harddrive/OS on another computer. Not netbooting or serving out a disk image via USB.

This is somewhat of a grey line in my opinion, one can achieve the same results if one set it up that way.

Maybe, but the point is that with Macs you don't have to set anything up. It Just Works that way by design. You can boot off another person's HD or you can just use their computer as an external Firewire harddrive. Say your friend has a computer that won't boot and you don't have a Live CD or other utiilty disk handy. You can boot his computer up while holding "T" key and attach it to your computer as a Firewire drive. You can run disk utilities on it, fix broken/missing files, whatever. Or maybe you just want to augment your local storage with another computer without bothering with file sharing and networks and such.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like such a Mac fanboy, but after spending 20 years dealing with PC hackery, it is a relief to work with systems that are designed (mostly) right the first time and not full of decades of legacy crap. I have absolutely no desire to go back and I feel sorry for people stuck in the Windows Quagmire.

Actually, I'd probably use VMware Player on a portable drive. Simple and elegant. Kinda like booting Macs off various media. ;-)

Good idea, although I don't it would work too well on locked down workstations (non-administrator access)

Somehow I doubt the BullDog thing would work much better. I imagine it requires some local software to take control over the video/keyboard or whatever it does.

-matthew

Re:Isn't this already possible... and then some?

[Ash-Fox]

And it isn't just Dells. My PC at home (Shuttle) doesn't boot USB either.

Heh.. I never even heard of that brand before.

Maybe, but the point is that with Macs you don't have to set anything up.

True. In the end it makes little difference to me whether it's supported out of the box or not -- I'm quite confident in my own abilities to setup and troubleshoot such systems. I'm actually quite surprised still hearing about your problems with booting off USB on PCs -- I have *never* had this problem, even during my travels.

It Just Works that way by design.

I honestly can't say I find Mac design reliable. I find it irritating enough when I can hear G3, G4, G5's whistling, nevermind the Macbook Pro which is even louder -- but I've had bad experience with hardware, I've never seen so many computers from a specific brand suffer motherboard (or as Apple-care called it on the phone, 'logicboard') failures.

As for the OS... Well, that's another story, Java implementations being extended and breaking existing applications, having to edit XML configuration files instead of using GUIs (I mention this, because I find it ironic this is what Mac users tend to complain about the problem is with Linux -- even though Linux distributions tend to have more available to you in TUIs and GUIs).. Secret commands for things like showing hidden files on the system when it should be just a click away, (like view -> show hidden files under Konqueror), rebooting to install simple things like codecs under QuickTime etc.

The services provided by Apple-care weren't very reliable either. I have had to wait (not always though) absurdly long times to get repaired hardware back, only to discover that they did not fix it (they do claim found nothing wrong or claim fixed the issue). Having to send hardware back and forth for months to get it actually repaired really doesn't leave me with a good impression.

I really can't say I've been taken in by the Mac -- which is why I can't see myself recommending it to anyone at the moment.

Somehow I doubt the BullDog thing would work much better.

It's a simple x-server.

I imagine it requires some local software to take control over the video/keyboard or whatever it does.

I have taken a copy of the x-server from the site, and have used it as a quick-and-dirty way to get a x-server under windows when need be. It runs on non-administrator accounts, vmware-player on the other hand, does require that you install it first with administrator privileges before you can use it.

As an Apple fanboy ...

[kitzilla]

... I must say I am totally looking forward to a super-secret feature that allows me to move my home directory between ... oh. I only have one machine. Never mind.

Re:As an Apple fanboy ...

[type40]

Then you must sell any organs that you can do without and get a second Mac.
Just sell both your kidneys, then you can have a Mac at home and the dialysis clinic!!

Re:As an Apple fanboy ...

[kitzilla]

Sorry: the kidneys went for my now-obsolete dual G5 PowerMac (one kidney for each IBM processor). In any case, Macs are cheaper these days: even a minor organ like a spleen ought to cover pretty much anyone's desktop needs.

But I like the way you think ...

Another impressively stupid patent

[knorthern knight]

> Just because you have your home directory on an iPod connected to a foreign Mac doesn't mean that you
> can authenticate and log in. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could have, in your home directory,
> credentials signed by a trustee that you could use to log in to any system,

    Previous art many years ago in *nix...

$ ls -1 ~/.ssh
authorized_keys
config
id_dsa
id_dsa.pub
known_hosts

- Carry a (hopefully encrypted) copy of your home directory on a 2GB USB key.
- Plug it into the computer with LDAP running
- mount the USB-key/floppy/zipdrive/USB-external-drive/whateve r
- ssh -F /mnt/usbkey/.ssh/config userid@hostname

Bingo, you're logged in.

PTO == Patenting The Obvious
not to mention all the clueless point-n-drooler Apple programmers who've just discovered POSIX (i.e. BSD) and aren't aware of almost 4 decades of previous art. I don't have any problems with them re-inventing the wheel. What worries me is that the USPTO allows them to re-patent the wheel.

Re:This is new?

[r_jensen11]

The only thing, though, is that the user profile has to be automagically created when the drive is mounted, something which is different than merely automounting a drive for a pre-existing user.

I don't get it.

[argent]

How exactly is "syncing your home directory to removable media" an exciting new feature?

I've been doing this, using rsync, for years. On sane operating systems where your whole account lives in one directory (as opposed to insane ones where it's spread among half a dozen locations) this is just something that automatically works. What's the big deal?

Unix 10 years ago?

[katorga]

Hmmm. NIS, automounter, and NFS file servers for /home. I could log into any system I was allowed to and my home dir, files, .profiles and X windows config was just as I left it.

Hmmm. Active Directory roaming profiles.

Hmmm. Linux, LDAP, automounter, and a remote home directory.

Hmmmm. Knoppix + ~/user on a flashdrive.

Array origin fun

[night tilda]

Further classification of the population: those who can tell an array's last element from its length, and those who cannot.

Re:Array origin fun

[corychristison]

What about associative arrays?

;-)

Re:Array origin fun

[Carthag]

what the hell, this is the second time someone has introduced arrays into this joke. It's not about arrays at all! Gutnor is correct, and goldmeer & dolphinling are wrong. End of story.

Re:So Apple patents automounting home directories

[Theatetus]

It's yet another case of

Mac fanboy says: "UNIX could have implemented it but didn't bother"
UNIX user says: "UNIX could have implemented but didn't because it's a stupid idea."

There's no way to solve it

[Theatetus]

The risk is what's being touted as the "feature".

Come on, seriously: a portable device establishing system authentication policy after system boot? If the whole thing talks to something like LDAP, fine (but whose directory? and under what circumstances?), but then there's no need for the device except as a drive. If it doesn't talk to something like LDAP it's essentially by definition insecure.

Re:So Apple patents automounting home directories

[Nikker]

Thats a good idea, you just have to remember Linux is designed to side to the physical computer. This means if I plug in a homedir of my root account at home would Linux allow me to have root access to my files on the usb drive or the ones on the physical disk? It does depend on what you want to do, because of the last point using this for root-kitting may not be efficient but using it as a live cd would work

" ~users -- it isn't rocket science. (tm) "

[Web Goddess]

I just have to chime in...

"Windows has always contained tools to migrate user data..."

Yes, tools. Not a simple conventionlike put them ~user/
FOR EXAMPLE, obeythefist.

>> Vista contains several new tools to automate migration, backup, import and export of user data, and even more beneficial, Vista is designed from the start to combine the profile data, user files and other miscellaneous profile stuff into one folder, stored under "Users". No more "Documents and Settings", which was a little unwieldy to remember.

Tools seem forever needed, in your universe, instead of putting configuration files in easy-to-find locations; adding ridiculous directory names like "Documents and Settings" ... your little unwieldy non-mneumonic, as you call it.

~users -- isn't rocket science.

It won't be a DRM limitation

[zoeblade]

Maybe for movies the studios are demanding only the paying user can view on their iPod - so movie downloads will be tied to a user account on each device.

That seeems unlikely. They're already tied to an iTunes account (the kind that can be used on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods), so why also tie them to an OS X user account? I'm guessing that since Apple manage the former on their servers, it's a lot easier for them to keep track of what you're up to.

Re:It won't be a DRM limitation

[anthropos9]

Not to mention that iTunes works on Windows as well, so tying movies to an OSX account would have to have a corresponding Windows action. That doesn't seem to be happening at this point.

.mac

[minuszero]

sounds like a dot mac feature to me.

backup your profile to your .mac account, log on to any mac in the world with internet access, and have your user profile loaded onto the system.

groovy. ...if i was prepared to pay for .mac

Been living this way for years

[bartzler]

I've been running a version of this "home on an external firewire disk" thing since 10.0 beta. You go home, work, home with the same little world.

1. login as someone else and cd /Users
2. psync yourname /Volumes/FirewireDrive
3. mv yourname yourname.backup
4. ln -s /Volumes/FirewireDrive /Users/yourname
5. logout and login as yourname

On the other machines, you still need to make a "yourname" user, delete the /Users/yourname folder and create the symlink. I imagine getting rid of this part is the "new" stuff they are adding now.

The only weirdness is with permissions sometimes (it helps to use the same uid on multiple machines -- but you can always just check "Ignore ownership on this volume" and live a bit weirdly).

You can also move and symlink your fink /sw directory onto your firewire drive, your /usr/local folder, your /Library/Packages folder, or whatever else you want to take with you.

You used to have a a problem if you logged in without the drive attached (they would "helpfully" create a new home folder for you), but they even fixed this problem recently. Now it just stops you and says "Can't find your home folder." Pretty cool.

b

Interesting if they add encryption & external

[np_bernstein]

OK, so as a number of users have said, this isn't very interesting if it's a home directory. Other users have, correctly imo stated that this becomes much more interesting if the directory contains the information they authenticate against. I think this is true, but what if taken one step further -
  1. ipod phone will almost certainly have a camera - how nice would it be if you could "automatically" log in with a quick iris scan?
  2. what if the device autmated "synced" snapshot backups? If the ipod only synced at the end of your session when you were going to logg out, it would autmatically have a "last good" snapshot. Since this is unlikely, what if you could choose to restore instead of update one of the computers your data was on.
  3. I think the idea of keeping a journal off disk is pretty interesting too. Got a virus? Lets check the read-only file checksum to see if it changed? It did? lets restore it from the good copy.

I'll tell you though - as much as I like my ipod, I really wish my smartphone could do all this. I carry it with me everywhere, it's got the potential, but the crappy software & drm makes it abysmal to use for anything but phone/web/email. Doing anything interesting is pretty much out.

Close, but not the future:

[crhylove]

What I want is a cell phone that has a USB plugin, and when on the "charger" which is also a USB hub and connects to a printer/monitor/mouse/keyboard/joystick/camera/spe akers/mic. That way, I've got my hard drive, apps, games, music, movies, data, letters, business papers, email, and chat all on the interface they are best on, but I've got it with me at all times, too.

I'm sure some of the latest phones have at least pentium functionality. Now can I get my USB hub with VGA out and bad ass (windowsmobile/windows/mac/linux replacement) OS?

That's obviously where were headed, when's mine ready?

rhY

Their 6-Pack looks like this:

[RJabelman]

$sixPack = array(
        'smart' => new can(),
        'handsome' => new can(),
        'rich' => new can(),
        'bulletproof' => new can(),
        'invisible' => new can(),
        'comatose' => new can()
);

It's already out there... sort of

[theheff]

This concept has already been implemented in a way. Whenever you bind a Tiger installation to a Windows Active Directory, the user's home folder containing most of their information is actually stored on the network (H Drive for us) and becomes portable. As long as you're on that Active Directory and log in with the right credentials, your profile moves to whichever Mac you use. It's almost like the framework for these portable profiles are already in place, just wasn't implemented.

online...

[suntac]

"All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"

Why not store this online. Do not take anything with you, simply click a "get online account details" and download all you settings and preferences from an online vault? This would make life quite easy. Working at the office, shutdown the computer and go home, turn on your computer at home and you are back in the same environment as on your work.... and euuuuu also the other way around ;-) login to your home computer environment in the office to finish that last bit of the game you where playing before you left this morning.

As simple as...

[Corwn of Amber]

... this: /etc/fstab: /dev/sda1 /home/portable ipodfs defaults 1 1

I have dreamed of doing just that. (I still dream, since there still is no 200+ GB iPod.)

Trivial, with prior art...

[mikelang]

My script will be now infringing the patent, when auto-rsyncing between /home, /mnt/usbdisk, GMailFS and remote accounts...
  The USPTO has poor review process.

not really new

[CDPatten]

It sounds like its the same thing MS and Novell have been doing with remote profiles for a decade.

I know the Apple fanboys are going to claim Apple invented this idea as well, but throwing a profile on a usb stick really isn't that revolutionary.

what about damn small linux!

[fishdan]

Great analysis. They also completely ignore the people who are travelling with DSL or some other linux on a thumb drive, and working that way. Some colleagues are also doing this with Ubunutu, but I don't like the bloat. But clearly people have been doing this for a while -- so the idea of carrying just your settings with you is really primitive -- why not carry your whole OS?

In my mind, there's no question that this is the REAL future of computing. Why would you carry a computer anywhere, except for a portable to work in weird places? Otherwise you just need to carry your env. Eventually of course, every computer will be networked -- and then you'll just log in and your settings will be downloaded, but till then, you can even carry Windows on your thumb drive if you so choose. So what's so special about carrying your settings?

Didn't NeXT do this w/ the optical drive

[tbuskey]

My memory is fuzzy.

Then there's client-server stuff like Sun Ray, Roaming Profiles and of course unix with an NFS home directory.

Re: " ~users -- it isn't rocket science. (tm) "

[obeythefist]

Yeah, the tools are needed because of a few failed evolutions of Windows. I'm not saying it's better but I am saying it's been there for a long time, and it seems to be the same thing Apple is trying to push now, they've invented portable user profiles, perhaps this is nothing new, certainly it's not new to a network OS designed from scratch around multiple users (UNIX and it's many children).

What we originally had with Windows was the first major single user-oriented GUI OS, so anywhere you should put your data would be fine because you're using a PC, and it's not networked it's a black box (once upon a time every PC was a black box), and so all the data could only really belong to one person, the user. Win3.11, Win95, Win98, they were all single user really, you had to change settings to make it present a logon prompt at all. So that's where we came from.

Now Microsoft tried to unify all the settings for each application so they were in one place, and governed by a single security model. This is the beast known as the Registry. The registry also had provision for individual user hives (NTUSER.DAT anyone?) which becomes HKeyCurrentUser when it loads into the registry when you log on. At the same time Microsoft had to turn Windows into a multi-user OS where previously it wasn't, so quite a big change for the majority of all business desktops which run the windows OS (by this time MS was truly a monopoly beast). Unfortunately it was a real mess under NT4.0 and it didn't look good until 2000/XP where they had the Documents and Settings part containing all the profile and My Documents and some of the application data too (why does an application need to components in a single users profile? Windows developers make windows bad, not always Microsoft, perhaps it is a hangover from the 3.11 days where the devs think only one person uses a system).

So you have your registry and you have your profile and My Documents and App data and they're all in different places. And more importantly, these things are in use while you're logged on because the registry stuff is mounted. So if you want to back all this stuff up you need a tool to do it, not quite as simple as copying a folder (well you can do that if you don't mind mucking around, which is basically what you have to do under UNIX because there's no tool for it that I know of).

So really, Microsoft tried to answer the question of the easy-to-find location with the registry, and that in turn made the whole OS more complex and required the use of tools to extract that information. It would have been quite easy to stick with an arbitrary number of arbitrarily located config files, that was the case in Win3.11, and it certainly was a dogs breakfast of an OS, because application developers are *never* consistent. Microsoft continually tries to muscle consistency into the apps that sit on their OS, which causes a lot of resentment, but you can either have chaos or order and people resent both.

How could you write a user migration tool that knows that a particular config file sits in a particular subdirectory a particular number of levels from the root if a particular application with a particular version is installed? In Windows you are most of the time assured it's in the registry. Where is it in Unix?