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On 10/09/16 10:44, Eion MacDonald wrote: > Dear folks, > 20160910 > off topic but what Linux distro could read and write to a mac > computer's external back up? > Impoverished new student (medical) has present of a Mac-Book Air from > her father. > > I would like her to have a 'secondary computer' at her lodgings > just to read her backup USB external hard disc in case her Mac-book air > is stolen(External hard disc back up USB or such, I have recommended she > have, as I have had some students with no back ups and thus trouble, but > on Windows computers, where i have recovered their non booting machines.) > > I have no experience of Mac computers but do have an old machine Core-2 > Pro CPU running Linux (Linux Mint 17) and I could change the distro and > give to her. > > What distro should I load for her? Basically any desktop linux distro will do once you've installed the hfsprogs or equivalent BUT - and it's a big but* - Apples default to HFS+, the journalled version of their filesystem, not plain HFS. Linux can handle plain HFS R/W, but R/W HFS+ is considered dangerous. Linux will read HFS+ just fine and can fsck.hfsplus a damaged volume if necessary, but to get proper R/W access you *must* first strip the journal from the volume on the OSX computer first. And you almost definitely don't want to do that. In dire emergencies you can explicitly force R/W access to HFS+ on Linux but once you start actually writing to the filesystem, all bets are off. I've personally trashed Mac volumes like this whilst experimenting as I'm the sort of person who gleefully ignores danger warnings normally: however, in this case the advice is sound. Do NOT attempt to write to a mounted HFS+ drive from Linux. Seriously. You have options however. First is to unjournal the Mac from HFS+ to plain HFS: don't do that either, as you're seriously compromising what is already a horrifically creaky, stupid and non-performant filesystem to the point where you're pretty much guaranteed failure. Linus has called HFS the worst filesystem ever by the way! (It's not, but it's certainly right down there...) Second option: see if the Core2 laptop you've got can be Hackintoshed. The med student would probably prefer her backup PC to run a familiar system anyway rather than Linux, and if her MacBook does die/get stolen/etc then she could simply plug in her TimeMachine backup drive and be back up and running in no time. Ask me if you decide to try this and need advice, I've done a LOT of Mac support and look after many Hackintoshes (funnily enough, mostly for medical staff as well). Third option: this is the most complex one, but by far the best and this is what I personally use. Install VMWare on your Linux of choice and patch it for Mac OS support. Run a full OSX VM within it, as per any normal virtual machine solution. VirtualBox can't handle this unfortunately (well it sort of can, but only running really dodgy pirated versions of a modified OSX86, and you don't want that) but VMWare can run unmodified vanilla OSX. Your problem here is that it is admittedly pretty complex to setup and I'm not sure running Linux/VMWare hypervisor + a full OSX VM on your dinky Core2 is going to be much fun. Again, just ask if you want more advice on this route. Some sources for you now. Sample commands for HFS/HFS+ mounting on Linux: http://askubuntu.com/questions/332315/how-to-read-and-write-hfs-journaled-external-hdd-in-ubuntu-without-access-to-os The motherlode of all Hackintoshing sites - this has literally everything you need to know in one place: http://www.tonymacx86.com/ The VMWare OSX Unlocker patch: http://www.sysprobs.com/vmware-workstation-8-0-8-0-1-unlocker-to-run-mac-os-x-guest-in-windows-7 Disclaimer: I've got Workstation Pro/ESX licenses via work, and I'm not 100% sure the unlocker works on the free VMWare version which might be a bust for you. Workstation Pro licenses are Â200+ otherwise, which is pricey. There is yet another option actually: a company call Paragon produce proprietary cross-OS filesystem drivers for Windows and Linux. I've got a licensed Windows HFS+ driver from them that works perfectly (as do all their other products I've used from them to be fair). I've never used their HFS+ driver for Linux but I can only imagine it works perfectly even though I've not personally used it. It is $40. https://www.paragon-software.com/products/home/fsd.html And actually one last option I just thought of, but I've never tried this and am not at all sure it would work - you could add NTFS write support to the Mac (either via a paid Paragon driver or the FLOSS OSX Fuse NTFS project) and format the TimeMachine volume as NTFS instead of HFS+ - the Linux laptop could of course access that R/W via NTFS-3G as per usual. Looks like it is possible, but rather hacky: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/7280/enabling-time-machine-for-a-usb-hdd-with-ntfs Well, that got a bit longer than expected but I hope it helps you evaluate your options at least. There are unfortunately quite a few of them as Linux/Mac cross-compatibility isn't all it could be, to say the least. I've been fighting it for a couple of decades... Cheers * "big but"... 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