Bug#433168: ITP: hfsprogs -- mkfs and fsck for HFS and HFS+ file systems (fwd)
Hi.
Here is a package that I'm working on and that is quite certainly of
interest to those that work with PowerPC (and now, even Intel machines,
as Apple has gone x86-64 now) machines and Linux.
If you want to help, don't be afraid. I am open to all suggestions and I
sincerely hope to have this package uploaded soon. It is long overdue
(since the death of Jens, which used to maintain a lot of packages for
PowerPC in Linux).
Having filesystem diagnostic and repair tools is a handy way to use HFS+
filesystems with the Linux kernel (which, BTW, already provides HFS+
support out-of-the-box).
Summarizing, if you are interested in what is written below, please let
me know and I will try to shape the package as well as I can.
Hope this helps, Rogério Brito.
P.S.: Please, keep the Cc:, as I'm currently not following the PowerPC
mailing list nor Debian User. I may subscribe to debian-powerpc in the
near future, as I want to get my iBook running Linux, but Ubuntu has
dropped support for that platform as they saw that there were not many
downloads of the PowerPC releases. :-(
----- Forwarded message from Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br> -----
From: Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Reply-To: Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>, 433168@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Bug#433168: ITP: hfsprogs -- mkfs and fsck for HFS and HFS+ file systems
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 00:41:25 -0300
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-11)
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>
* Package name : hfsprogs
Version : 332
Upstream Author : Apple Computer Inc.
* URL : http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4/
* License : APSL 2.0
Programming Lang: C
Description : mkfs and fsck for HFS and HFS+ file systems
This is taken from closed bug report at <http://bugs.debian.org/229769>.
It seems that the package never actually materialized itself
unfortunately. :-(
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The HFS+ file system used by Apple Computer for their Mac OS is now
supported by the Linux kernel. I've had ample experience with the
mkfs and fsck utilities for this file system in Linux, both from
personal use and from reports of the users of my Debian package
hfsplus. Right now, mkfs and fsck from this package are best
described as nonexistent and totally unsuable, respectively. The
upstream author has declared he is not going to develop these tools
any further. So there goes another nice piece of free software.
Of course, Apple provides mkfs and fsck for HFS+ with the Unix core of
their operating system, Darwin. Experimental ports to Linux and
FreeBSD exist, so I will start with the original Darwin source and
these ports.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For those needing the executables, the best option up to now has been
following <http://www.debian-administration.org/users/lee/weblog/21>,
but a proper Debian package would be, of course, the preferred solution.
There are more reasons for having this package in the archive, namely:
As I see it, HFS+ seems to be a good compromise to carry files between
MacOS X and Linux Machines (and Linux has already gotten hfsplus support
in the kernel for a long time).
HFS+ doesn't suffer the problems of FAT32 like:
* huge space waste (in slack space as devices grow faster);
* ability to create files that are more than 4GB in size (especially
good for those working with multimedia and that need to carry large
ISO files);
* ability to use case sensitivity (but I don't know if this is already
supported by the Linux Kernel);
* ability to be a journaled filesystem (idem);
* ability to use uid's ang gid's on the filesystem.
Among others that I don't know.
I plan on getting the newest changes/patches that I can, especially from
other distributions, especially from gentoo (which already seems to have
such HFS+ utilities available to their users).
I think that Debian users in general (since Macs have gone ix86-64 and
have also been available under PowerPC for ages) would benefit greatly
from a filesystem that is not as limited as FAT32 as pointed out above.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (900, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.21.5-1 (SMP w/1 CPU core; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=pt_BR (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
--
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org
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