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Plethora of New User Space Filesystems For Mac OS X
DaringDan writes "As part of the recent MacFUSE 2.0 release Amit Singh has added support for an insane number of filesystems on the Mac. This video from Google and this blog post pretty much explain everything in detail but to sum-up Singh has written a new filesystem called AncientFS which lets you mount a ton of UNIX file formats starting from the very first version of UNIX. Even more interesting is that they have also taken Linux kernel implementations of filesystems like ufs, sysv-fs, minix-fs and made them work in user-space on the Mac, which means its now possible to read disks from OSes like FreeBSD, Solaris and NeXT on OS X. ext2/ext3 don't seem to be on the list but apparently the source for everything is provided, so hopefully some enterprising soul can apply the same techniques to ext2. One of their demos even has the old UNIX kernel compiled directly on the Mac through the original PDP C compiler by somehow executing the PDP binaries on OS X!"
Especially if I ever need to recover one of my linux box's drives from a Mac.
But really, all I want for christmas is NTFS write support.
What is needed is an ext3 implementation. There've been projects to bring ext2/3 to the Mac, but so far they've been incomplete and abandoned.
I'm actually pretty surprised that this hasn't been properly implemented already.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
Because slashdot isn't a public service announcement system and macfuse is more interesting?
External hard drives, for one. I have some external drives I use on Linux boxes for various things. All of these boxes are up in an air conditioned server room. On occasion I need to get one file off onto my workstation, which is a Mac. Currently I have to walk it up to server room, connect it up, go back down, shell into the machine and mount it (if it's not an automounted drive), then somehow get the file out of the linux box to my Mac (scp or something). If I could just mount it on my workstation, it would save a lot of time.
Additionally, there are occasions where a recovery process needs to be run on a bad drive. The same procedure applies. It's mainly a convenience thing, but it would make the Mac into a much more useful tool for admins. I can definitely see the usefulness for FAT/NTFS in a desktop support environment.
Naturally you can always comment "Why use a Mac in the first place when you could have a linux desktop?" but I would reply that I don't have a choice, the CEO only buys Macs for workstations. So I have to use what I've got. This would make my life easier.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Some users installing third party apps that modify their system files, and then apply updates over them have issues is hardly newsworthy.
Riiiiiight... Because a Linux-heavy audience would never even consider violating the sanctity of those spoooooky "system files" of which you speak...
You most certainly can if you want to. But if you have system files A and B and you modify B and later system update modifies A to call something in B that you changed the behavior of, then don't blame the system update.
That's all I'm saying.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
No, NTFS has support via NTFS3G. The other popular file system, FAT, is already supported natively.
Jefe: I have put many beautiful new user space filesystems in the Mac OS X, each of them filled with little suprises.
El Guapo: Many new user space filesystems?
Jefe: Oh yes, many!
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of new user space filesystems?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A *plethora*.
Jefe: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: Forgive me, El Guapo. I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?
From my impression an Apple update causing major system trouble really isn't news.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
you mean BARELY causing? I am sorry but a hundred or so postings when there are over a million OS 10.5 users out there is NOT in my mind major trouble.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Macs are gay.
Yeah. My macs are gay. But I talked to them, I explained I am hetero, and they never molested me - they never did anything to hurt my feelings. I am tolerant, but not interested in gay relationships. My computers understood that.
Not that I would ever be interested in having sex with a computer anyway...
Roberto
Not that I would ever be interested in having sex with a computer anyway...
Well, SOMEBODY'S in the minority on Slashdot...