Parlez-vous Mac?

Parlez-vous Mac?

Whatever your preferred flavour of Linux you are going to end up editing loads of .conf files. While a quick burst of nano is fine for smaller examples, when dealing with mega-files such as squid.conf I normally drag them back to the mac using the SFTP client Fugu, edit them in something like TextWrangler, and then squirt them back to the Slug. This is also a great way to browse logs and stuff and of course to move stuff around when you just can’t face Midnight Commander or cp.

However even SFTP seems cumbersome compared to MacFUSE. This allows any filesystem accessible via SSH to be mounted on the Mac desktop and accessed just like any hard disk. So the entire Slug Linux filesystem (ie both hard disks) just appears to be a series of folders which can be navigated with the finder, copied, deleted, etc like any other file, and double clicking made to autolaunch a suitable editor or browser on the Mac to directly edit or view files on the Slug.

MacFUSE is still officially beta, but the latest version has been rock solid on my Macbook under OSX 10.4.9, but if you are going to try it take care, but of course you do have backups don’t you?

Of course FUSE is old hat to you hard core Linux users. Windows users? Well if you’re reading this blog you really want a Mac don’t you? In the meantime there is PuTTY and WinSCP but you are still short of a FUSE for now.

Slug on a Short Fuse

Friday, 30 March 2007