Mac

Update: most of this information is still correct but an update for combining service definitions into one file and setting an icon is available here: bonjour-avahi-addendum

In my last post I outlined how I followed others’ directions to enable netatalk on Linux and Time Machine backups to a shared AFP folder. Originally, I also described how to put all your shares on netatalk. I suppose if only have Mac clients or you REALLY want to use AFP, you can do so. As I worked with files over AFP shares, I started noticing that the performance seemed to be quite bad. No, I didn’t benchmark, but copying large video files to a shared folder over my gigabit network was substantially slower over AFP (netatalk) than over CIFS/SMB (samba). I use my network shares pretty heavily, so this was a concern. Also, netatalk tries very hard to replicate an HFS filesystem complete with resource fork support. This means that your shared directories end up with lots of extra folders named “.AppleDouble”(and a few others) containing Mac specific info. (Note: even on CIFS you’ll get the “.AppleDB” folders unless you disable a setting in Finder. I can deal with .AppleDB better than .AppleDouble AND .AppleDB) So, because of these two issues I decided to try using CIFS and samba again.

My foray into the Mac OS X world is fraught with daily challenges as I try to learn my way around this new environment. Firefoxhas long been my browser of choice on Windows and Linux. So now, I’ve used it on Mac, and while I still like it, I’ve felt the urge to try out “Mac native” apps such as the bundled Safari web browser. For the most part, switching to Safari meant learning new keyboard shortcuts, but one thing that was really killing me is that if I closed Safari or it crashed, I lost all my tabs.

So, I’m a MacOS newbie, just switched over from Windoze / Linux. I figured, it’s cool, things “just work”, and it’s got a Un*x/BSD core. What else is there? Hehe, the interface has definitely been a challenge. So, the first huge problem that drove me nutz was that in Firefox, I couldn’t tab to checkboxes, some buttons, multi-select boxes, etc. I asked around, but found others with the same problem.