Ubuntu 10.04 on mac.vmware

xud (uniX # Ubuntu # Desktop)
-- in my mac.vmware

web.addn/xuw/linux and mac sharing data drive:

6.1: summary:
. for both mac and linux to have
both read and write access to a data drive,
what is a safer format than fat32 ?
. safety means a journaled format
like mac's HFS+ Journaled,
or the linux ext3 .
. mac doesn't have stable write-access to ext3 .

. ext2, despite its lack of journaling
is still recommended for devices with
a short life: bootable USB flash drives,
and other solid-state drives.
. linux can't write to a journaled mac drive .

Mounting ext3 in Snow Leopard? 2009.9

. to mount ext3 as rw in mac OS X Snow Leopard:
make sure you have MacFUSE
. extend Mac OS X's native file handling capabilities
via 3rd-party file systems.
It is used as a software building block by dozens of products.
As a user, installing the MacFUSE software package
will let you use any 3rd-party file system
written atop MacFUSE.
As a developer,
you can use the MacFUSE SDK to write numerous types of
new file systems as regular user-mode programs.
The content of these file systems
can come from anywhere:
from the local disk, from across the network,
from memory, or any other combination of sources.
Writing a file system using MacFUSE
is orders of magnitude easier and quicker
than the traditional approach of writing
in-kernel file systems.
Since MacFUSE file systems are regular applications
(as opposed to kernel extensions),
the dev's have just as much flexibility and choice in
programming tools, debuggers, and libraries
as with standard Mac OS X applications.
In more technical terms,
MacFUSE implements a mechanism that makes it possible to implement
a fully functional file system in a user-space program
on Mac OS X (10.4 and above).
It provides multiple APIs, one of which is a superset
of the FUSE (File-system in USEr space) API
that originated on Linux.
Therefore, many existing FUSE file systems
become readily usable on Mac OS X.
The MacFUSE software consists of a kernel extension
and various user-space libraries and tools.
It comes with C-based and Objective-C based SDKs.

Download fuse-ext2
Fuse-ext2 is a multi OS FUSE module
to mount ext2 and ext3
file system devices and/or images
with read write support

. if getting linux to format,
look out for the partition is not an ext3
but a Linux_LVM partition.

Install both of those and run a few commands in terminal:
$ disktool -l ## find nameOFdisk (used below)
$ sudo mkdir /Volumes/HD ## create a mount point
$ cd /usr/local/bin/ ## the fuse-ext2 folder:
$ sudo ./fuse-ext2 /dev/nameOFdisk /Volumes/HD/ -o force ## the fuse command

a login script example:
$ umount /dev/disk0s6 ## unmount what login automounted
$ mkdir /Volumes/Ubuntu ## login scripts are run as root
$ /usr/local/bin/fuse-ext2 /dev/disk0s6 /Volumes/Ubuntu -o volname=Ubuntu,force

Heres some useful information if you dont understand my syntax:
$ fuse-ext2 [-o option[,...]]
options:
ro : mount read only
force: mount read/write
allow_others: allow other users to access
debug: noisy debug output

Right now when I load os x
ext3 shows up automatically as read only.
automate this by Creating a login hook:
made it work.

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /path/to/script
. This modifies the file:
/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow
. Type your password at the prompt, then press Return.
another way:
Finder`menu/go/Go to Folder ( /etc/ )
In the resulting window,
Open as text ( /etc/ttys ):
find this line:
#console "/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow" vt100 on secure window=/System/Library/CoreServices/WindowServer onoption="/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"
Edit this line like so (and with /path/to/script naming your script)
#console "/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow -LoginHook /path/to/script" vt100 on secure window=/System/Library/CoreServices/WindowServer onoption="/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"

## caveat: (from bitter experience)
scripting will work fine while you have
only one (boot) disk,
and after you've finished messing about
adding/subtracting disks from your system.
Disk arbitration probes asynchronously,
resulting in 'n' for 'disknsm'
being somewhat arbitrary.
Second:
> mount_fusefs: failed to mount /Volumes/HDA@/dev/fuse1:
> Socket is not connected
and I believe it is caused by a socket timeout.
The journaling system is different for ext3 and hfs+,
thus each time a disk is remounted on the 'other' OS,
the journal is rebuilt. Or
maybe something else is happening?
An awful lot of disk thrashing can be heard
for up to two minutes
before mount fails.
Manual mount after that time is almost instant.
. ext4 works too .

a Linux file system for Mac/PC drive sharing
Feb 23, '04 09:39:00AM ' Contributed by: Anonymous
I am constantly reading about people trying to move large files
between NTFS and HFS+ partitions.
I know that NTFS has Read Only support in 10.3, but there is a better solution...
The Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem project
has a great driver for OS X that provides full ext3 Read/Write support for OS X.

web.addn/xuw/linux and mac sharing data drive/
vmware fusion ubuntu can access ext3 disk:

6.1: kwanghui on Jan 29, '10 01:13:21PM
(and at superuser.com)

I find the easiest and most reliable way to access
linux ext3 partitions on my mac
is to run Ubuntu in a vmware virtual machine on the mac.
Once running you can connect Ubuntu to the ext3 drive via usb,
and this way you can get complete reliability
reading and writing to ext3 file systems.
It's fast because the disk is directly connected to the mac,
unlike on a network.
And you can use it to copy files very quickly
to/from the mac host
by using shared directories or any number of other ways.

asking fusion support specifically about fusion's support for ext3

6.7: Nov 16, 2008 9:20 PM

. you cannot use Fusion's VMDKMounter to mount
an ext3/LVM .vmdk virtual disk;
and, any other solution -- if it exists --
has nothing to do with Fusion.
So in the context of using Fusion's VMDKMounter
to mount an ext3/LVM virtual disk
it is not doable, as it is with a Windows NTFS or
FAT32 formated .vmdk virtual hard disk .
. In theory all you have to do is
find a MacFUSE filesystem plugin that handles ext3.
There's an experimental one,
but I don't think it's stable .

if you had vmware workstation for pc ...

. add USB controller to the VM
and plug in the external drive after the VM starts to boot;
or,
add it as a physical disk to the VM
(thats the advanced option in the add disk wizard) .

6.6: mis.addn/mac.vmware/no gateway to foreign fs:

. I was thinking that a linux vmware
might hook me up to a linux disk;
but, of course,
the vmware only sees what the host sees!

Fuse-ext2 requires at least Fuse version 2.6.0
- Mac OS: Mac Fuse

there are no known bugs for read-only mode,
though, do not mount your filesystems with write support
unless you do not have anything to loose.
please send output
the output of below command while reporting bugs.
$ /usr/local/bin/fuse-ext2 -v /dev/path /mnt/point -o debug
Usage: fuse-ext2 [-o option[,...]]
--. what you can do with readonly?
works well with a version control merge !
. there's some instructions in the download
that are not familiar ways to install .
. has a package as if mac install happens,
but the readme has a bsd script to run .

6.8: co.net/macosxhints.com/Mount Ext2/Ext3 Linux volumes in the Finder:

my reply to [kwanghui Jan 29, '10]:

[paraphrased] Nov 16, 2008 9:20 PM
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1100381#1100381
. you cannot use Fusion's VMDKMounter to mount
an ext3/LVM .vmdk virtual disk;
and, any other solution -- if it exists --
has nothing to do with Fusion.
So in the context of using Fusion's VMDKMounter
to mount an ext3/LVM virtual disk
it is not doable, as it is with a Windows NTFS or
FAT32 formated .vmdk virtual hard disk .
. In theory all you have to do is
find a MacFUSE filesystem plugin that handles ext3.
There's an experimental one,
but I don't think it's stable .

if you had vmware workstation for pc ...
. add USB controller to the VM
and plug in the external drive after the VM starts to boot;
or,
add it as a physical disk to the VM
(thats the advanced option in the add disk wizard) .

Mounting ext3 in Snow Leopard? 2009.9
[recent problems]

Fuse-ext2 2010.06/readme.rtf/Bugs
Fuse-ext2 is a EXT2 Filesystem support for FUSE.
. there are no known bugs for read-only mode.
although, write support is available (and it is pretty stable)
please do not mount your filesystems with write support
unless you do not have anything to lose.

6.3: proj.addn/mac.vmware.xuw/make a lubuntu vmware:
. says I should add vmware tools,
only after I turned it off;
but, when off, it has the menu offer dimmed .
. if I ignore its advice,
and ask for the vmware tools while its running,
then it does attach a virtual cd drive
containing the tools, along with
a script for installing them
(this is the routine needed for debian too;
only ubuntu and windows get auto-installers) .
. installing the tools is not a high priority
anyway:
if lubuntu is like the previous ubuntu variant,
it works well without the tools,
except for pasteboard sharing with host .
. lubuntu is a significantly lighter:
at 2.8gb, it's half of what other ubuntu's take up .
-- still nothing close to pup's 0.6gb!
. using synaptic pkg mgt to see what's inside:
(show all, sort by [is selected])
-- the selected-checkmark shows what's already installed .

6.16: proj.addn/xud/cross-platform drive:
. used vmware.ubuntu.gparted to
reformat the 80gb drive to fat .
(6.20: I had not been able to see the entire drive
from mac's drive utility).
. fat32 should be safe for transfers and backups:
if something messes up,
just repeat the copy .
. it would format an ext4 drive
but wouldn't let me write to it
-- consistent with prior readings on the subject:
vmware depends on the host's drivers .

6.16: proj.addn/xud/vmware tools install:
. vmware v3 can install vmware tools in ubuntu 10.04
or you can skip v3 and use this script ...
all defaults work .
. the only part I left out is:
sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
but I did that yesterday .
--. even without vware-tools,
things are nicely sharing by
trading access to usb drives .

mis.addn/xud/vmtools buggy without update:
. xud keeps rebooting with err mounting /mnt/hgfs;
this time I try manual recover
and it gives me a root shell .
. all these problems are echoed by dmoonc:

"( Ubuntu continued to complain at startup
that it had failed to mount hgfs.
It continued to request user permission
to skip mounting hgfs.
But once the boot completed
/mnt/hgfs was mounted with correct permissions.
To prevent Ubuntu complaining of failure
to mount hgfs,
I added a nobootwait option to its entry
to tell mountall(8)
not to hold up the boot for this filesystem.).

. the cut&paste across windows does work,
so not sure why shared folders wouldn't .
. shared folders are at /mnt/hgfs
yes!
. but! trying to access anything in hgfs
results in a system freeze .