# How Do I Mount Linux Hard Disk In OSX



## TIVO2IMAC (May 1, 2002)

I have a collection of files on a LINUX partition on a removable drive. It's a NON-DOS and NON-HFS+ partition. So the Mac does not know what to do with it and wants to format it. It mounts fine under Linux on a PC, and under Windows on the PC it's like it does not exist at all.  

I though that under OSX it would be a snap to mount a LINUX partitioned hard disk and copy files and source over to the OSX Mac, but HOW? Isn' OSX, a close kin to Linux, UNIX in all it file structure and commands? I also have a large collection of MPEG video files that I'd like to move over to the iMac G4 and iDVD for burning.

I'm using an iMac G4 800, and I have a removable drive bay kit in both a USB and FIREWIRE external enclosure. I have even gone and accessed a DOS FAT partition on a hard drive volume, but NO GO on the LINUX volume. Mac formatted volumes are simply plug and play on the removables.

What are my options?

What am I doing wrong?

What commands/tools can I try on the Mac to mount this disk?


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## blb (May 1, 2002)

Since it's a filesystem used by Linux, it's most likely ext2fs, which OS X does not know how to read.  Your best bet would be to put it back on the Linux box and remote mount it to your OS X machine, then copy stuff over.

Currently, OS X only knows the following filesystems: CD (ISO9660), HFS/HFS+, MSDOS FAT, UDF, CDDA, and UFS.  Here's hoping more are added in the future...


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## lethe (May 2, 2002)

if the disk is ext2fs, then it would not mount under windows.  windows has no support for linux filesystem.  if it mounts under windows, then it must be fat, in which case OSX should have no problem.


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## TIVO2IMAC (May 2, 2002)

It's seems to me that it doesn't make much sense that OSX can not read a LINUX EXT2 volumes, since much of OSX is based on the same UNIX architecture as LINUX.

Given the fact that there are tons of good utilities that could be of great potential use on the Mac OSX platform, why wouldn't they include EXT2 as a file type that is supported?

It also seems that if I were to load LinuxPPC on a partition that I could run it and load something like MTOOLS and read other DOS FAT disks and even a Linux EXT2 volumes and copy to either a PC formated FAT partition or Macintosh HFS+ partition (while under Linux running on the Mac) and make a transfer of file information, then later go back and mount that same DOS FAT or HFS+ disks under OSX to get at the data on the partition. 

Why I'm not too keen on a network transfer is that we are talking about 5, 10, 20+ gigs of data. It's not just a few files that I wish to transfer to OSX.

There has to be an easier way to accomplish this task?

What's so complex about EXT2 compatibility?

Why specifically exclude this in OSX?


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## lethe (May 2, 2002)

OSX and linux are not at all based on the same architectures.  actually the architectures are quite different, although they are both distantly related to UNIX.  Apple is not actively interested in supporting linux.  if you want to write a kernel extension for e2fs for darwin, feel free, you can because of the open source nature, but i don t think that is one of apples priorities right now.  since e2fs is on the way out right now, i don t really think that it should be anyones priority.

your suggestion that if you had to, you could load linux/ppc and transfer it that way would not work.  linux cannot write to an HFS+ partition at all.  there would be no way to transfer the data that way either.  you will really just have to do it over the network.  sorry


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## SCrossman (May 2, 2002)

install SAMBA, then you can use OSX, OS9 to mount linux shares.

get samba here  and install on your linux box.

use smb which is native in OS X to mount. not perfect, but it works!
use smb://machinename/sharename in connect to server in OS X


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## svejk (May 2, 2002)

> _Originally posted by lethe _
> *  if you want to write a kernel extension for e2fs for darwin, feel free, you can because of the open source nature, but i don t think that is one of apples priorities right now.  since e2fs is on the way out right now, i don t really think that it should be anyones priority.*


*

Ext3 is backwards compatible with ext2, so an ext3 module would support both. Ext3 is the default FS for RedHat; it probably isn't on the way out.




			your suggestion that if you had to, you could load linux/ppc and transfer it that way would not work.  linux cannot write to an HFS+ partition at all.  there would be no way to transfer the data that way either.  you will really just have to do it over the network.  sorry
		
Click to expand...

*
There is an HFS+ module project. Currently it is in alpha. 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-hfsplus/


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## lethe (May 3, 2002)

well it is my opinion that ext3 is only a temp solution, and soon there will be a standard ground up journaling filesystem.  i am rooting for XFS.  but you re right.  ext3 is not on the way out just yet.  so maybe TIVO if you want to read your linux disks in OSX, you should find someone to write an ext3 driver.

and yes, hfsutils is in alpha.  i use it.  but good luck trying to transfer your 5 Gigs of pr0n with that.  you re going to have a rough time.


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## svejk (May 3, 2002)

So far, I am partial to ReiserFS. Hans Reiser and I agree on some metadata issues.


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