Re: problem while moving HOME from FreeBSD to MacOS with bsdtar

From: Norman Gray <gray_at_nxg.name>
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2023 10:07:16 UTC
Matthias, hello.

On 9 Mar 2023, at 9:52, Matthias Apitz wrote:

> You're fully correct. There are two directory entries, but both point to
>  the same inode and data blocks:
>
>  $ ls -li Homework HOMEWORK
>  4016236 -rw-r--r--  1 apitzm  OCLC\Domain Users  0  9 Mär 09:37 HOMEWORK
>  4016236 -rw-r--r--  1 apitzm  OCLC\Domain Users  0  9 Mär 09:37 Homework
>

No, there's only one directory entry, but you're listing it twice:

% ls
Homework
% ls -li
total 0
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 Homework
% ls -li Homework HOMEWORK
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 HOMEWORK
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 Homework
% ls -li Homework homework HOMEWORK hOmEwOrK
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 HOMEWORK
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 Homework
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 hOmEwOrK
32687651 -rw-r--r--  1 norman  wheel  0  9 Mar 09:59 homework

> What is this for a file system idea? I will check, if I can modify this
> without reinstallation of the complete system.

It's just case-insensitive -- a particular design choice.

You can create new filesystems in the APFS container, either with Disk Utility or with diskutil, and that's occasionally useful (as I mentioned, Nix on macOS is installed in a case-sensitive volume).

I don't _think_ you can change the 'personality' of an existing volume, though, and if you were to try to install macOS on a non-standard filesystem (and if you were to achieve that) I suspect the OS would break entertainingly.

Best wishes,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  https://nxg.me.uk