Amit Singh has just
announced
that Google is releasing
MacFUSE,
a
FUSE
compliant file system implementation mechanism for Mac OS X,
which makes a
plethora of file systems
already working on Linux
easily available to Mac OS X users as well. Some of the
tested
file systems include full read-write NTFS by
NTFS-3G,
transparent encryptions by
CryptoFS and
EncFS, SSHFS,
GmailFS, and more.
It’s nice to see how FUSE is now even getting multiplatform*! It had a long time to evolve and it is really powerful. I even wonder why it took so long to have filesystems in userspace anyway.
Side not: Funny how the Google developers themselves better miss out GmailFS
*There also exists a FreeBSD port yet!
Edited 2007-01-12 18:04
I can’t wait to be able to access NTFS on Mac! I hope Apple picks this up officially for their next release!
This is fantastic, I have been waiting for this for a long time, I hate formating external harddrives as fat for portability, now I can use ntfs which has much better performance and stability.
“””now I can use ntfs which has much better performance and stability.”””
Is this true? I’ve never used FUSE. Partly because I have had no compelling need to access filesystems not supported natively by Linux. But also because I assumed that its user space nature had performance, and possibly stability, ramifications.
Could someone in the know please comment upon the pros and cons of user space filesystems?
well.. what he meant was that ntfs is better than fat, which is certainly true.
as for pros and cons.
well, userspace isnt less stable than kernelspace, so fuse filesystems wont necessarily be any less stable than kernel level filesystems (though many probably are).
the pros are that you can write in basically any language you like, since fuse has bindings for mostly everything, and furthermore, you can use c libraries, or libraries for whatever language you use, to develop the filesystem.
this ofcourse means that if these things have bugs, the fuse filesystem may carry bugs, but its as such with everything.
as for speed? well. there is probably a slight performance hit, but as all code, if its optimized, its fast
It would be cool to get this in a .pbi file on the PC-BSD site. It would be nice to put my downloads folder on my windows drive so I can have the whole other drive for PC-BSD.
Edited 2007-01-12 18:23
Hi,
There is a FUSE freebsd port and many other ports that interact with fuse to achieve sshfs, ntfs, etc..
It contains a kernel module, userland libs for the fuse framework and sshfs/ntfs support.
http://fuse4bsd.creo.hu/
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
And you can find many fuse related ports:
http://www.freshports.org/search.php?query=fuse&search=go&num=10&st…
Cheers
Never really been a fan of FUSE, but I won’t complain about an increase in functionality.
Why would one have a ntfs partition on a mac in the first place?
boot camp?
ok, I see.
Portable hard drives
Ummm…to run Windows perhaps? You know, the whole boot camp thing that happened….ummmm….almost a year ago?
after long years of waiting i finally got sshfs for my mac. so long zend-studio welcome textmate for remote development
already tested it and is seems to work without problems – hopefully its also stable enough for day to day use …
“FUSE makes it possible to implement a very functional file system in a normal program rather than requiring a complex addition to the operating system.”
Is the success of FUSE an example of the benefits of a microkernel over a monolithic kernel?
Just having having code communicating between ring 3 and ring 0 doesn’t make it microkernel like. The bulk of the work is still done in kernel mode. The user mode stuff acts as a last mile translation layer.
Yes, it’s “like” a microkernel. I do not understand the question since it’s pretty clear, in fact it was one of the reasons why people actually developed it in the linux kernel: allow people to implement easily (you can use whatever programming language you want) and safely. In fact, I’ve heard that Mac OS X also has a FUSE-like thing.
But there’s a reason why ext3, ZFS, XFS, NTFS, HPFS and friends are not implemented in userspace in their native operative systems: performance. Anyway, with FUSE in linux/osx you get all the advantages of monolithic kernels (no, os x is not a microkernel, the fs lives in the same address space than the kernel and running as privileged code, i don’t see how that is a microkernel) and microkernels at the same time.
> In fact, I’ve heard that Mac OS X also has a FUSE-like
> thing.
Erm… had a look at the topic of this thread?
yes – have you read what I said? FUSE is not the first “filesystems in userspace for monolithic kernels” implementation, and it’s said that mac os x alredy had its own
I would dream about Fuse on Windows, which is not possible, I’m afraid.
and why isnt it? not that i hope anyone does the port. stuff like fuse should be reserved for people using a proper OS
>and why isnt it? not that i hope anyone does the port.
>stuff like fuse should be reserved for people using a
>proper OS
Now now, theres no need for name calling.
A user-space filesystem for windows would be very useful IMHO.
Edited 2007-01-12 23:06
and why isnt it? not that i hope anyone does the port. stuff like fuse should be reserved for people using a proper OS
OSS people don’t seem to have any problems with this (look OO.o, FFox, Gimp, Gtk,…). You should preach this kind of sentiment to MS and Apple.
They reserve their things for people using proper OS and not otherwise.
i didnt namecall.
“They reserve their things for people using proper OS and not otherwise.”
ehh, no, they do exactly the oposite, which im quite happy with.
If it works reliably, this will be a huge enhancement.
I know several people who just want to find common ground between their x86 Linux and Mac OS X boxes and storage and others who need to work with Windows drives, even prior to the Intel-based Macs.
Those with Intel-based Macs often run Parallels and/or Bootcamp, but would also like to be able to deal with just NTFS instead of making partitions for FAT32 and NTFS for compatibility.
It’s tough just to get a UFS (UNIX File System) that’s common among different vendors.
These people will be heroes.
SSHfs for the Mac. Sweeeeeeet.
check out http://blog.macos.fr