OT question about Macbook (OS X) file systems

[Les Mikesell]

Dean S. Messing wrote:
> 
>> Split the tar into pieces less than 2GB (with split -b), copy to a VFAT 
>> formatted USB drive and on the mac, cat the pieces back together to feed 
>> to tar.  But, if the music files have standard tags that itunes will 
>> recognize, I'd just copy the files themselves to a vfat drive without 
>> the symlink structure, drop them into itunes and let it organize them 
>> its own way.  You'll quickly learn to hate macs if you try to force them 
>> to do things your way.
> 
> I don't need to learn to hate macs (or Apple).  I bought
> an iPod for my daughter a few months ago and quickly learned
> what a pool of iTunes quicksand their whole business model is.

I've never bought anything from the itunes store, but I use it daily, so 
I can't complain.  Itunes will happily rip your own CD collection, (and 
to mp3's if you like) and add the track names and cover art for you 
without charging extra.  And there is a huge selection of podcasts 
available there for free (if you like tech stuff, anything with Leo 
Laport is great).  If you set the subscriptions and expirations right, 
all you ever have to do is plug the ipod in to charge and it will 
automatically sync new episodes and delete the ones you've listened to 
and you have fresh stuff to play on the way to work every day.


> I'm buying the mac because the Conservatory "requires it."

Don't apologize - just learn to take best advantage of what it does.

> I need the links because the music is going to be transferred
> onto her iPod replace, a Cowon A3 PMP (which runs linux inside)
> but the device does not deal with ID3 tags.  The link structure Dad's
> "poorman" attempt to give her multiple views of the music
> (by composer, by performer, etc.)

Hmmm... It's hard to beat an ipod and itunes at what they do.  You can 
organize in itunes using an assortment of manual or smart playlists, 
then simply select and drag those titles out to a folder for other uses.

> The transfer to the Mac is just an intermediate step so she
> has a computer copy of the music.  She may use iTunes on it eventually,
> but not for communicating with the PMP.

If you get a network connection, you can use rsync -av to copy a whole 
tree including the symlinks.  If the files are in a separate tree from 
the symlinks, you can copy to a vfat usb drive (there are some nice 
USB-powered external 2.5" units) - or to DVDs if you have a writer. 
Then tar up the symlink trees separately and those tar images should be 
small enough to copy to vfat or DVD file systems.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com