Difficulty downloading executable Macintosh files in Linux
 

Firstly, I'm not even sure if this is the proper forum...I'm not only a Linux newbie, but also a Mac newbie, and this sorta concerns both. I have an ancient Mac that I'm hoping to eventually network with my Linux box, as a second terminal for doing console stuff while my main Linux box does other things. The problem is, I need to download software on my Linux machine, and take it over by floppy to the Mac. I am able to format a 1.4MB floppy in the Mac, and then mount it on Linux with 'mount -t hfs'. I can read the disk, and write to the disk like this. However, when I download a file from the web (I've used Mozilla and Konqueror to try this) and save it to the Mac floppy mounted in Linux, then unmount it, walk it to the Mac and try to access it, it is seen by the Mac, but won't run.

Now, I've done some reading already, and it seems that Mac files have a funky format that has two 'forks' for the file, and apparently, any system but a Mac will mangle one of these forks and render the file unreadable on a Mac. The way people seem to be getting around this, is by posting Mac files in a format with the extension .hqx, which is apparently encoded to text, and then a program on the Mac can decode it back to the original file, thus avoiding the corruption as it transits through another filesystem. Ok, this makes sense to me, but I don't have a program yet on the Mac to convert these binhex files to normal.

I've also read of several utilities for Windows by which you can obtain a Mac file and write it to the Mac floppy 'raw'(I think that's the word), whereby the Mac will be able to read it. Is there any way I can do this in Linux? I've discussed this in Mac forums, and the answers I have gotten are either specific to Windows, or else un-useful, like "Buy a new mac.". Any help would be much appreciated.

"I've also read of several utilities for Windows by which you can obtain a Mac file and write it to the Mac floppy 'raw'(I think that's the word), whereby the Mac will be able to read it. Is there any way I can do this in Linux? I've discussed this in Mac forums, and the answers I have gotten are either specific to Windows, or else un-useful, like "Buy a new mac.". Any help would be much appreciated."

As a wild guess you might be able to do a "raw" write with the dd command. The dd command will copy a file block by block. So if the Mac file happens to be a block by block image of a floppy then you could use the dd command to create a usable floppy. If the Mac file is not a block by block image of a floppy then dd will simply create a floppy that is unreadable on any operating system. See:
man dd


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