First, I'd like to thank Shawn Wallbridge for the .PDF files. Great stuff. My question is for OS/X users. I won a Knoppix DVD door prize but since I don't have a DVD burner, I took it to my friend who has a PowerPC OS/X Panther system. To my surprise, his system failed to read the Knoppix DVD, so could not burn a copy of it. We think OS/X can't deal with the Linux file system, probably ext3. How do you get OS/X to recognize the ext3 file system and be able to read from it? Of course my assumption that a Knoppix DVD uses ext3 might be completely wrong. In that case, what file system are we dealing with and, again, how do I get OS/X to read it? I'm not too keen on buying a DVD burner myself since next year Blue-Ray and HD DVD will have arrived and made it instantly obsolete. I once had a programming instructor who refused to purchase his own computer for this very reason. I used to think he was nuts. Now I'm not so sure.
Finally! my e-mail account is back up and running.
On October 18, 2005 02:52 pm, millward wrote this amazing epistle:
First, I'd like to thank Shawn Wallbridge for the .PDF files. Great stuff.
Good presentation too.
My question is for OS/X users. I won a Knoppix DVD door prize but since I don't have a DVD burner, I took it to my friend who has a PowerPC OS/X Panther system. To my surprise, his system failed to read the Knoppix DVD, so could not burn a copy of it. We think OS/X can't deal with the Linux file system, probably ext3.
I'm not an expert. Others may be able to confirm what I say or not...
OS X does see ext3 partitions. It just doesn't like them. When I was doing that bit I mentioned a few weeks ago about the USB box, the OS X machine I eventually used to format the last partition on the drive saw the ext3 partion as UFS (Unix File System) and refused to have anything to do with it. I thought I saw something on Freshmeat today which was supposed to allow OS X to see it. I didn't bother checking out the project (moving on to other things and all that).
The other thing which occurs to me is it may be possible to do a bit copy of the DVD. I have no idea what options to check to do one, but I am told it is possible.
How do you get OS/X to recognize the ext3 file system and be able to read from it? Of course my assumption that a Knoppix DVD uses ext3 might be completely wrong. In that case, what file system are we dealing with and, again, how do I get OS/X to read it?
I'd like to know too.
I'm not too keen on buying a DVD burner myself since next year Blue-Ray and HD DVD will have arrived and made it instantly obsolete. I once had a programming instructor who refused to purchase his own computer for this very reason. I used to think he was nuts. Now I'm not so sure.
The thing with the HD and Blue-Ray is compatability. It should be easy to make Blue-Ray compatable with HD but from what I've heard not so easy to go the other way. I'm not too happy with the rumoured "self destruct" capability being built into Blue-Ray. I thought Pioneer was going to release Blue-Ray as the 110 model (which is already being sold)...
Later Mike
millward wrote:
My question is for OS/X users. I won a Knoppix DVD door prize but since I don't have a DVD burner, I took it to my friend who has a PowerPC OS/X Panther system. To my surprise, his system failed to read the Knoppix DVD, so could not burn a copy of it. We think OS/X can't deal with the Linux file system, probably ext3.
While you are correct in assuming that OS X can't read ext3 filesystems (although I've seen a driver recently that purports to allow that), the problem you are having is much more basic.
DVD filesystems come in two flavors, generally speaking: ISO 9660 (the standard CD-ROM filesystem) for data-only DVDs, and UDF (Universal Disk Format, I think) for true DVD disks. Most bootable DVDs (in fact, most DVDs other than videos) are actually ISO9660 - a glorified super-sized CD-ROM, basically.
The Knoppix DVD in particular should follow the ISO9660 format. I can't remember how the live filesystem image works on the Knoppix disks - but the Mac should at least mount the disk and show you _something_. It may not show you anything useful - the Knoppix live filesystem is some funny compressed format, I believe, so I think anything other than Knoppix itself will only see a handful of large files
If your friend's Mac doesn't even mount the disk and show you _anything_ then the physical media simply isn't compatible with the drive. Go find another DVD burner :-) If it does mount the disk, then it's actually working just fine - and you can burn a bit-for-bit copy and it should work fine in a PC.
As for buying a DVD burner, I'm of the opinion that you should get neither Blu-ray nor HD at this point, since at the current price point DVD burners can be thought of as a consumable - I can buy a (single-layer) burner for (a LOT) less money than refilling the ink in my printer! The IDE combo drives tend to be quite reliable by now, no matter who's logo is on the outside. (Much like CD-RW drives, there are only a handful of companies manufacturing the internal mechanisms.)
-Adam
I think "Disk Utility" under Mac OS X can make bit-for-bit image of a DVD-ROM that can then be burned to a new disc. I just put a Knoppix CD (not a DVD) into my Mac OS X 10.3 ("Panther") machine. It mounted it and read the files properly.
-Brian
On 18-Oct-05, at 2:52 PM, millward wrote:
First, I'd like to thank Shawn Wallbridge for the .PDF files. Great stuff. My question is for OS/X users. I won a Knoppix DVD door prize but since I don't have a DVD burner, I took it to my friend who has a PowerPC OS/X Panther system. To my surprise, his system failed to read the Knoppix DVD, so could not burn a copy of it. We think OS/X can't deal with the Linux file system, probably ext3. How do you get OS/X to recognize the ext3 file system and be able to read from it? Of course my assumption that a Knoppix DVD uses ext3 might be completely wrong. In that case, what file system are we dealing with and, again, how do I get OS/X to read it? I'm not too keen on buying a DVD burner myself since next year Blue-Ray and HD DVD will have arrived and made it instantly obsolete. I once had a programming instructor who refused to purchase his own computer for this very reason. I used to think he was nuts. Now I'm not so sure.
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