Subject: Re: Further observations...
To: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu>
From: David A. Gatwood <marsmail@globegate.utm.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 02/07/1998 16:19:21
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Bill Studenmund wrote:

> On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Colin Wood wrote:
> 
> > David A. Gatwood wrote:
> > > On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Colin Wood wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Justin R. Smith wrote:
> > > > > 1. How does one access ordinary Macintosh files?  I noticed a command
> > > > > mount_dos. Is there a corresponding operation for Macintosh files?
> > > > 
> > > > Not yet.  Everyone who has done work on Unix-based HFS support seems to
> > > > have put it under the GPL, as a result, we don't have anything like that
> > > > in the kernel.  However, there is an excellent set of utilities you can
> > > > download and compile for this purpose, called the hfsutils.  I don't seem
> > > > to have a copy of the URL at the moment, but I guess I should find it and
> > > > add it to the FAQ....
> > > 
> > > There's an old one on puma, tho there are probably many newer versions.
> > > 
> > > Any chance of HFS support in an lkm?  I believe somebody said that would
> > > get around the GPL issues.
> > 
> > Bill Studenmund and someone else who I can't remember at the moment worked
> > on an implementation of hfsfs(?) as an LKM sometime last year, I think.
> > However, I don't know what the final status of it was.  Bill?
> 
> Paul Goyette and I worked on hfsfs. We got it to where it'd work
> single-user, but there was something wrong with how it handled buffers,
> and it'd panic the kernel if anything else was using a filesystem at the
> same time.

Was that the one that could only read, or could it write, too?

> If anyone else wants to work on this, go for it. Though I'd recomend
> instead that you port macfs, the linux HFS-reading FS. It seems to write
> safely, and Paul Hargrove, its author, would be happy for there to be a
> NetBSD port. Also, mkLinux seems to use it, so there'll be more long-term
> support from Apple. It will still be GPL'd though. He received some
> assistance from a mac-emulator company on the understanding that the code
> stay GPL'd, and he is respecting that agreement.

By any chance are the most recent versions of your hfsfs work available in
source form?  If not, could you mail me a copy?  I'd love to have a look. 
Not certain that I could figure anything out, but I'd certainly give it a
shot....

(and unlike my failed attempt w/ installer hacking, I have a working
un*x-side compiler, thank you very much :-)

BTW, if the current installer folk would like the modified code, I'll send
it that way.  I couldn't compile to see what worked and what didn't, and
I've lost track now.

When I finally gave up, I was working on:

1.	rm -r
2.	cp
3.	mv (across filesystems using cp and rm)
4.	wildcard support (un*x filenames).

Note that these are in the minishell.  I'm not sure how far I got with any
of them or whether they worked, since I couldn't get the blasted compiler
to include any of the .h files no matter where I put them.


David

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