Subject: [netatalk-admins] Type Manager / CD Writer / Zip Drives?

From: Matthias Ferdinand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 12:37:26 +0200

Hello,

does somebody know of a solution for managing fonts from
a Unix (in this case: Linux) server, such as Adobe Type Manager 
does on a Mac? We have some customers who consider Linux/netatalk
as an alternative, but they want to have their font manager
to reside on the server machine.
Is it possible to write to CDs and ZIP drives in Mac Format 
from a Unix box? I figure that reading them would not be too
difficult using a HFS driver, but writing? If somebody has any
hints, I really would like to hear from you - thanks!

Regards,
Matthias Ferdinand

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From: Vivek <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:19:35 +0100 (BST)

> hints, I really would like to hear from you - thanks!

Yes: HFS can write to Mac disks: however, resource forks are probably
going to bite you here: I'm not sure there's an easy way to take
netatalk .AppleDouble style forks and munge them into an HFS file system.
However, you should be able to move files between HFS partitions [or
filesystem-images], so burning Mac CDs should be possible...

http://www.ps.ucl.ac.uk/~jcpearso/mkhybrid.html

Might be helpful there. mkhybrid understands AUFS [as used by CAP] but not
the netatalk style forks: I'm not sure how similar the CAP and netatalk
methods for storing the forks are: the description on the above page makes
me think they're pretty similar, but I'm no expert. [I haven't tried out
mkhybrid yet, but it's on my list of things to do]

I don't think you can format Mac HD's on the linux box because AFAIK
there's no way to make a Mac partition table under Linux.

Hope that's all of some use.
-- 
fsck -f -b 8193 /dev/cortex

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From: Nicolai Langfeldt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:21:58 +0200

> from a Unix box? I figure that reading them would not be too

If you use a Mac cd-mastering program (such as Adaptech Toast) you
can make it write cd-image files which you can burn onto a cd from
unix.

Works for us.

Nicolai

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From: Alistair Riddell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:09:03 +0100 (BST)

> there's no way to make a Mac partition table under Linux.

The PowerPC Linux kernel understands Mac partition tables and the fdisk
that comes with PPC linux can handle Mac partition tables. I see no reason
why this could not be possible on x86.

-- 
Alistair Riddell - BOFH
IT Support Department, George Watson's College, Edinburgh
Tel: +44 131 447 7931 Ext 176       Fax: +44 131 452 8594
Microsoft - because god hates us

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From: Andras Kadinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 03:00:31 +0200

[Sorry for the private copy, Alistair]

> why this could not be possible on x86.

Yes, it is. And Linux development kernels (the 2.1.x series) even have
Mac partition table support built-in. I don't know, how to use it yet,
though (but I don't use 2.1.x kernels).

The fdisk (or I think it was pdisk?) that comes with MkLinux (also a
PowerPC compatible Linux) can also create Mac partition tables, and You
can use hfsutils to create the filesystem, which You can access later
with the HFS module.

However, the Macintosh stores some parts of it's disk driver software on
the disk; I don't know if there are tools to place a driver into the
correspoding partition, or if it is needed at all. Mac-experts, anyone?
I am pretty sure You can not live without it if You need a bootable Mac
CD.

Since the need for burning Mac CD-s directly on unix would be beneficial
for me too, I think we should look into extending mkhybrid to understand
netatalk's [why do we call it so anyway; it's pretty standard, isn't
it?] AppleDouble format. Volunteers? I am familiar with the AppleDouble
format. Anyone from the AUFS side?

Sincerely,
Andras Kadinger
[email-masked]

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From: Matthias FERDINAND <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 04:00:30 +0200

Hello, 

thanks to the people who were responding - now I have some pointers
to check out on the weekend :-)
Being able to write Mac CDs would just be an argument for the netatalk
solution itself, I personally would not consider it very good
practice to have such a timing-critical application run on a 
possibly very loaded file server. But I will explore that further
on the weekend.
BTW, is it possible to change file permissions from the client side?
I don't even know how to invoke that window on a mac, I just 
seen it recently (gives owner,group,and world permissions an shows
who can even see the volume). Are that supported calls in netatalk
or is it necessary to do the settings by editing the file permissions
and .AppleVolume files?

Regards,
Matthias Ferdinand