PC, Macintosh & LINUX as one happy family (a.k.a. how to minimize sibling squabble?)

oceanarches · 09-03-2008, 07:16 PM

I have a systems riddle:
How does one exchange information (in the most efficient way possible) between a Macintosh that is in one location (static IP, work network), a PC laptop (dynamic IP, DSL modem, home network), a LINUX workstation (dynamic IP, DSL model, same home network), and NTFS formatted external drives?

I am a PC-user that has worked with NTFS formatted drives to store data (largish, 1.5 GB files in 500GB-1TB drives). I don't want to lug these external drives with me when I change work locations, and I need to be able to access my home-office LINUX machine from my work-office.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good configuration?

It seems that I can get both MAC and LINUX to read/write to NTFS drives, but is there a better format to work with all three OS systems?

I am exploring my options, but I figure that someone out there is much more savvy about this stuff than I am! Feedback is most appreciative.

jschiwal · 09-03-2008, 09:01 PM

One way is to share the external drive.

You can write to an NTFS filesystem in Linux. Install the "fuse" package if it isn't and use the ntfs-3g filesysten in your mount command. The fuse package installs the fuse kernel module and some utilities. You may need to "sudo /sbin/modprobe fuse" to load the kernel module before using the ntfs-3g filesystem.

You didn't indicate where the ntfs external drive is located. If it is connected to your Linux machine at home, you will be able to mount it, and then use scp if you are outside the lan to transfer files.

I'm not familiar with MACs. An OS X system may have something like fuse as well.

----

I searched on Google for the terms 'fuse "os x" ntfs'. The solution for OS X is remarkably similar.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...71228215232264

oceanarches · 09-04-2008, 11:36 AM

Thanks, jschiwal. I was thinking that using the linux as the base for external drive connections may work best. I am working on mounting the external NTFS drives on the LINUX machine, but I keep bumping up against my hurdle (mountain?) of inexperience.

I have installed fuse-ntfs-3g.x86_64 0:1.2812-1.el5.rf successfully using

Code:

sudo yum --enablerepo=rpmforge install fuse fuse-ntfs-3g dkms dkms-fuse

, but my external still won't mount.

It seems that modprobe adds (or removes) modules from the Linux kernel (from the man page); how does this differ from using yum to install? Is the modeprobe command needed if yum works?

Back to the mount issue.

My 1TB drive shows up as a "volume" under the "computer" folder. If I double click on it, I get the error "cannot mount volume...ntfs file system...not supported...."

I am just as unsuccessful if I try the command line (which I'd prefer to learn anyway).

Code:

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?
[rmueller@localhost ~]$

This error may be more descriptive and seems to indicate that I have no clue which USB device I am connected to. How do I find this out??? Is there a command to detect the active USB ports and their path location?

Thanks,
Rachael