Is HFS really "scary"?

Tabitha McNerney tabithamc at gmail.com
Wed Feb 6 20:02:21 PST 2008


On 2/6/08, Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh at apple.com> wrote:
>
> That's probably never going to happen.  When you're dealing with
> grandma on the phone and she's saying "I can't open my file named
> ``fluffy!''", the last thing you need is to go 10 rounds trying to
> figure out whether she actually named it Fluffy, fluffY or FlUFfY.
> That is why case insensitivity was added in the first place (and
> believe me, it was a lot more work than being case sensitive).
>
> At least modern Macs allow you to select case sensitivity as an
> option, vs having to know (as you did in the past) that this meant
> "UFS" instead of HFS (and all the problems that switching filesystem
> types entirely came with).


I very much appreciate that HFSX case sensitive boot disc volumes are now
possible in Leopard. Thank you Apple for bringing that to the table for
serious Unix users. I can also understand that Apple is in a unique
situation trying to support general consumers such as Grandma. I wonder what
operating system Linus Torvold's Grandma uses? Or maybe she doesn't use a
computer like John McCain said he doesn't own a Mac or a Windows PC (oops,
ducking the politics, sorry I couldn't resist the opportunity 'cause McCain
is old enough to be my Grandpa)!

T.M.


- Jordan
>
> On Feb 6, 2008, at 11:37 AM, James Sumners wrote:
>
> > These things would probably get fixed Macs shipped with the case
> > sensitive filesystem installed. Personally, I was quite surprised that
> > the filesystem was case insensitive when I got my first Mac (a
> > PowerBook three years ago).
> >
> > On Feb 6, 2008 2:31 PM, Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh at apple.com> wrote:
> >> That's a fair point.  Perhaps better to format a "work" partition
> >> as HFSX
> >> then and keep the system partition as HFS.  That way, you can at
> >> least check
> >> out sources and do various things which are tripped up by case
> >> insensitivity
> >> while still not running afoul of apps like this.
> >>
> >> - Jordan
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Feb 6, 2008, at 10:45 AM, Scott C. Kennedy wrote:
> >>
> >> But, then you have to deal with lazy developers & QA issues like...
> >>
> >> Microsoft Office 2004 Entourage can't understand timezone when
> >> using sync
> >> services
> >>
> >> cd /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office (or the appropriately
> >> situated
> >> place on your machine)
> >> ln -s timezones.xml Timezones.xml
> >> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc
> >> Microsoft Office 2008 Entourage can't understand timezone when
> >> using sync
> >> services
> >>
> >>
> >> cd /Applications/Microsoft Office
> >> 2008/Office/EntourageCore.framework/Resources or the appropriately
> >> situated
> >> place on your machine)
> >> ln -s timezones.xml Timezones.xml
> >> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc
> >>
> >> Symantec/Norton AntiVirus 10 & 11 can't run with case-sensitive
> >> filesystem.
> >> HR Block TaxCut 2007 can't find images or XML files to function.
> >> Feral Interactive - XIII - Game can't run when installed on case-
> >> sensitive
> >> filesystem.
> >>
> >> And I keep finding more and more of them. :(
> >>
> >> Scott
> >> PS> Anyone else find any issues with Applications or Games?
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Sumners
> > http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/
> >
> > "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
> > pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
> > is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
> > drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
> >
> > Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
> > CH:D 59
>
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