Sharing files across OS partitions

[Jason DeVita]

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006, Mark Christal wrote:
> I am hoping to install a dual boot YDL/OSX system on my Ti Powerbook and was 
> wondering how work on the YDL side of the hard drive can be shared with work 
> on the Mac OS X side.  Will I be able to open up the Mac partition to 
> retrieve files when I am running YDL and  visa versa?  If not, is there a 
> partition scheme that I can create that would allow both OSs to read and 
> write to a shared partition?

OSX uses HFS+ for its file system.  YDL has very good read/write support 
for HFS (plain vanilla non-plus).  And I know that HFS+ can be read from 
YDL, but I'm not sure if it can be written to.  Supposedly, there is now 
full linux support for HFS+, but I don't know if the newest YDL has it by 
default.  But if need be, it probably can be done.

Otherwise, you can set up an HFS "sharing" partition, which both OSX and 
YDL can read/write from/to.  There are two downsides to this.  One is that 
HFS does not allow for files larger than 2GB, so if you need to transfer 
large files you'll need to find another way.  Second, you have to remember 
to put your files on the shared partition before rebooting.  I've let out 
many a "Doh!", after forgetting that.  Going from OSX to YDL, this is no 
big deal, since YDL can read HFS+.  But OSX cannot read Linux partitions, 
so you must remember this when going the other way.


Hope that helps,
Jason