file system for OSX/linux

[second_exodous]

I run linux on my PC and have an ibook, and my family have apples. I have to move large amounts of data, and wireless doesn't cut it(it's what my family uses) I bought this drive: http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php/products_id/756 and want to read/write to it on both linux and OSX. I bought it thinking I would just format it to ReiserFS since it's my favorite, but I find out now that OSX can't read/write to ReiserFS.

What is a good fast stable (the drive is going to be raid 1) filesystem to use between osx and linux? Plugging it to either/or and having another computer read it from the network defeat the purpose.

Thanx,
Stan

[yellow]

Hmm.. FAT32?

[afb]

there is a project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/) to add ext2 support to os x, but i've never used it.

[escoles]

Hmm.. FAT32?

Is there a reason why he (or I) shouldn't choose the "Unix file system" option? (I have a similar problem.) And is it really dangerous to use Fat32 on an OS X volume?

[second_exodous]

FAT32? Reminds me too much of my windows days. One of my linux friends said that HFS+ works really well in linux, I guess I'll try that.

Thanx,
Stan

[TazmanDman]

My experience has been that HFS, not HFS+, works really well in linux.

[yellow]

Is there a reason why he (or I) shouldn't choose the "Unix file system" option? (I have a similar problem.) And is it really dangerous to use Fat32 on an OS X volume?

Sure, I suppose you could use UFS. I have no idea what it's limitations are in terms of file size or naming. As for FAT32, you cannot install OS X on a FAT32 volume, but most of the USB pendrives out there that you use are FAT32, so no, it's not dangerous at all.

[Craig R. Arko]

Information on using UFS tools on Linux (http://ufs-linux.sourceforge.net/). Just remember, UFS is a BSD disk format and not a native Linux disk format, any more than HFS or NTFS is.

I'd also go for FAT32 for least hassle; which will mostly involve file-naming conventions.

[dakini]

I can mount HFS+ from an Ubuntu Linux system (using "-t hfsplus" option). I think HFS+ support needs to be built into the Linux kernel, or as an kernel module.

[zpro]

dakini

please post the command line you used to mount a cdrom (dvd-ram)
media that was mac formated hfs+ ( that linux CAN'T) read

Thanks-
:D

[fyrefiend]

If you have permissions to mount the disk and kernel support for hfs+ format the command is:
mount -t hfsplus /dev/<drive> /<mount point> replace <text> with the device name and mount point, respectively

As for cross platform partitions I usually use Fat32. I dislike it as well but it can be read by pretty much every OS there is.

[displaced]

Just to chime in with my experiences with Linux's HFS+ support...

It's great!

I wanted to copy my games off my PC onto an HFS+ formatted Firewire drive. Windows had eaten itself, so I couldn't boot Windows and install my copy of MacDrive to give Windows HFS+ compatibility. I had an unbootable PC holding my games hostage!

I stuck an Ubuntu Linux live CD in the drive and booted up. It detected the HFS+ Firewire disk, and let me read and write to it fine. The read-only access to Windows NTFS drives was enough to let me copy what I needed to the Firewire disk.

I plugged the Firewire disk into my MacBook Pro and, out of curiosity, immediately ran DiskWarrior on the drive. It found absolutely no prblems with how Linux had written to the drive.

Since I predominantly use OS X, I was unwilling to give up any of the Mac-specific features that HFS+ offers. Linux's HFS+ compatibility seems perfect, and my WinXP Boot Camp installation can join in the fun by using MacDrive. FAT32 was never an option -- woeful efficiency on any reasonably large hard disk, no OS X metadata.... generally horrible.

UFS was also inappropriate for me -- again, lack of all the OS X goodness: metadata, creator codes, etc.